Blog Feed“…, minor key tonality and extensive vamping.”
The Web and Internet in general seems to be populated by all sorts of services, some more useful than others. While this might be somewhat banal, I’m actually a really big fan of Amazon not because they are generally a cheap place to buy books and DVDs, but because of the value-added features that helps me to discover new authors, artists, etc. that I’ll like. Using the “customer’s who bought this item also bought” and “average customer review” features (ignoring the rather pants idea of allowing idiot gamers to review games and consoles not even released yet) has enabled me over recent years to find some great products because I have been able to tap into like-minded people’s preferences. However, yesterday I was made aware of a new service that I really like much more.
Today I have my own personal DJ…
If nothing else I have to give thanks to the person who came up with the idea of RSS and MacWorld UK as it is unlikely that I’d have tripped over this without Safari telling me that I had a new article to read. To cut a short story shorter, MacWorld UK put up a news headline advertising that the Music Genome Project had opened the fruits of their labours to the public in the form of Pandora. Pandora is, essentially, your own personal DJ and, for me, it fills an interesting niche besides the likes of Internet radio stations and the iTunes Music Store.
The iTunes Music Store is a great little service for me because it allows me to listen to music before I buy it and therefore I can get an idea if I’ll like it or not. The problem is, with so much music in a given genre and with tracks on an album often differing so much from what you might normally expect from the artist, it may be difficult to identify which tunes you’ll really like from the hundreds of thousands on offer. Sure you can wade your way through it but it takes a lot of time and, personally, I don’t really know which artists that I’d like in the first place (aside from the ones that I already own the music for). Internet radio stations fill a hole in this area since they will play music of the genre that you like in the entirety but you have no control over what they play and they will often play stuff that you don’t like.
Ultimately the best thing I often find is to know people who know what sort of music I like and can suggest bands or tracks that I might not know about and that should be to my taste. It is this role that Pandora seems to be trying to fill and, from a day’s use, it seems to fill it very well.
The Music Genome Project has taken about 60-years worth of music (according to their site) and categorised each track according to 400 distinct musical characteristics. Based on this information and knowledge of the artists and/or tracks you already know that you like the Pandora service is able to create a playlist for you that supplies music with characteristics similar to the tracks that you have already said that you like. The results are quite impressive.
The Pandora application runs through your browser and Macromedia Flash and is free for the first 10-hours but costs about $3 per month after this for unlimited listening and no commercials. You can create about 100 individual radio stations based on your tastes (I’m running one of rock/punk and another of techno/ambient at the moment) and, if you wish, share your customised stations with other users. Each track that appears can be reviewed (only in terms of liking or not liking it) and the service will give you detailed information about why it selected a particular track if you click on it. For example, it has recently thrown Papa Roach’s “She Love Me Not” at me for the reason that “it features hard rock roots, mild rhythmic syncopation, minor key tonality, repetitive melodic phrasing and dirty electric guitar riffs”. I had no idea that was what I liked, but it was an enjoyable track for me. If you really like any of the tracks that you have been listening to then you can request to buy the track via either Amazon or the iTunes Music Store.
Aside from the price the only problem with the service is that you cannot request specific tracks due to licensing issues or something along those lines. However, at the moment I don’t care and subscribed pretty quickly.
Anyway, for me, this service comes highly recommended as it is doing a sterling job of introducing to bands that I had either never heard of or did not know that they made music that I’d actually like. Give it a bash for 10-hours and see what you think.
31st August | Reply
This sounds very cool.
Though it makes me wonder - if you have specified what certain songs (and thus characteristics) you like, and are then given a nice big list of other tracks which you’d probably like in light of that, wouldn’t it then restrict you from other songs you might like, but with characteristics you’re not quite aware of (or in other situations you might not like)?
For instance, if I make playlists full of pop songs, completely unaware that there are some rock songs out there which are completely different and I’ve never heard them before, will I ever hear them? And thus, will I ever be opened up to the world of rock? Of course this is very hyopthetical, but it seems that unless it’s done right, it could mean that people are always exposed to the same kinds of songs and they are never exposed to other things which for all they know they might love. I guess it depends on how loosely the “similar characterisitcs” are interpreted by the software.
31st August | Reply
The best thing to do is to give it a try. But the service itself makes a playlist dynamically based on all the information that you have provided to it, both before and after you start playing it. You never actually see a playlist in terms of what is coming, mostly because it can completely change if you tell Pandora that you don’t like what is playing at the moment, but you can see all the tracks that have been played before.
On this subject I did drop a suggestion to the developers asking for the ability to export a simple list of the tracks that you’d listened to and said that you liked. Surprisingly I got an email back from the founder saying that he liked the idea and that they’d pass this onto the development group, which was nice.
31st August | Reply
this is really interesting. I’ve always thought there’d be something defining that made me like or dislike songs, but I’d never thought someone would actually research it (or even be able to).
1st September | Reply
I shall be trying this out tomorrow then. I absolutely love music and listening to new tracks is a bit of a drug to me. If the service is good I will gladly pay the $3 a month for it
And John just wants this so he can play Papa Roach music all day =P
1st September | Reply
Well, just bare in mind that the service won’t play a certain band or track “On Demand” but rather it will select tracks for you that share the same characteristics as the music that you have said that you liked. I think it plays your first track by the artist that you specified (well, it did for me) but after that the track played next depends on customisations made to your preferences (rating tracks played and/or adding new liked artists/tracks to your station). It’s all pretty much random chance, although I am noting that some tracks return as I’ve had The Chemical Brother’s “Hey Girl, Hey Boy” a few times recently.
24th September | Reply
Of all the “music match” services out there, Pandora may be least likely to pigeonhole you. Pandora matches at the single song level instead of by artist (or worse, by popular opinion). If you are like me, hearing a good song leads me to seeking out the artist, which then exposes me to some great music.
Anyway, this service is supposed to be analogous to radio stations. Unless you are listening to Morning Becomes Eclectic, standard radio is exposing you to a very small portion of the music spectrum. By staying true to the essence of particular songs, Pandora’s distillation process brings you pure aural magic.