Pandora - the Music Genome Project

[Greyskye]

Has anyone else gotten into this? Pandora lets you put in your favorite songs, groups, etc., and makes recommendations based on those. You can approve or disapprove of selections made for you, and the stations you create can be listened to by anyone else (if you choose to make your station public). I've been finding lots of really great music this way.

Check out my station: The Eclectic Greyness, and post the link to your own.

http://www.pandora.com/people/greyskye

If you don't care for the 1st song or 2 you hear, skip forward a few. As the station title suggests, it's pretty eclectic. :evilgrin:

Here is what the site has to say about the Music Genome Project:

On January 6, 2000 a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever.

Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.

Over the past 6 years, we've carefully listened to the songs of over 10,000 different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world.

It has been quite an adventure, you could say a little crazy - but now that we've created this extraordinary collection of music analysis, we think we can help be your guide as you explore your favorite parts of the music universe.

We hope you enjoy the journey.

I forgot to add - the stations are so far commercial free. You can't download the songs, or select which exact song you want to play, as their license agreements don't allow for that. They do provide links to enable you to easily purchase music through iTunes or Amazon however.

[and-justice-for-all]

1. I have a station as well...

www.synister-radio.com

Its sort of eclectic...But I think you will get the idea once you get to the site. Same rules apply, cant download anything and we dont have a "skip ahead" feature either, it is NON-Commercial as well.

I cant access your link from work, I will have to do so later at home.

[Greyskye]

2. very cool

While I have a number of punk/thrash influences, there isn't much in the metal realm on my station. I have a feeling it might be a little to low-key for your tastes. :headbang:

I've tried to tailor my station for energetic music that I can listen to while doing fairly technically demanding tasks at work. Metal tends to make me twitch a bit too much. :evilgrin:

[LTR]

3. Pandora is pretty kick-ass!

I went crazy and designed quite a few 'stations'. Some of them I actually listen to.

Some examples:

"Frank's Place" - I entered only two artists - Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart. Interesting results.

"Adrenaline" - Entered in Pantera, Megadeth and Slayer. Wanted the hardest, fastest metal station ever.

"Anti-Authority" - old-school punk rock (none of that Blink 182 shit)

"Beach Party" - all surf music

"Doo-Wah" - All doo-wop

"Yacht Rock" - Lots of crappy soft yuppie rock from Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, etc.

"Pass The Jam" - Jam bands

"Swizzle Stick" - lounge music

"UK Swingin'" - This was a weird one. Mostly 60s pop, British invasion, stuff like Lulu and Petula Clark, etc. Wanted to replicate a 60s-era AM top 40 station, and give it a real British feel. Pretty neat.

"Maverick" - alt-country, classic country, countrified rock.

And others. I have a list on my site, right-hand column:

http://ltradio.blogspot.com/

or here:

http://www.pandora.com/people/ltradiomail

I even got silly and designed little logos for each of them (I was bored).

I like how Pandora throws in album tracks, long-forgotten oldies and some interesting obscurities. I just wish that it would allow choices based on decades, among other things. And they do mess up from time to time. On my lounge station they threw in a heavy metal band from Spain, for some strange reason.

[Greyskye]

4. Thanks for the feeds!

I've been browsing through your stations - I'm really liking your "Old Wave-80s style New Wave" station.

Didn't care for the Jam Band station as much as I thought I would. Did you seed it with any contemporary jam bands, such as String Cheese Incident? I don't think I heard anything on that one that was less than 15 years old. :D

I'm looking forward to trying others once I get my fill of my nostalgia binge on the Old Wave station.

Thanks!

[LTR]

5. I believe I put in some older stuff

Like the Allman Brothers Band.

Only problem is, if I throw in anything to old, they'll likely spit out old classic rock stuff like Foghat or whatever. This one may need some fine tuning.

Check out the Zappa station ("Frank's Place"). That one turned out interesting.