How exactly does Pandora work? I mean, I understand the songs in, songs-judged-similar out notion, but what is the algorithm? Does it come just from the initial preferences punched in by the users, or does ongoing listening affect & change the pattern?
Briefly, and this may not answer your question, but as it gives you a random song, you can approve of / disapprove of it, and they factor the preferences they get from that into their algorithm. That help?
For slightly more detail, here's the link to the description of the Music Genome Project on Pandora -- they don't get too technical to be understood, I think. A quick read (five paragraphs), and pretty interesting.
Relevant quotes:
Each song in the Music Genome Project is analyzed using up to 400 distinct musical characteristics by a trained music analyst. These attributes capture not only the musical identity of a song, but also the many significant qualities that are relevant to understanding the musical preferences of listeners...
The Music Genome Project's database is built using a methodology that includes the use of precisely defined terminology, a consistent frame of reference, redundant analysis, and ongoing quality control to ensure that data integrity remains reliably high. Pandora does not use machine-listening or other forms of automated data extraction.
There are several hundred factors. Sometimes they are laughable in their inaccuracy, but that's what makes music so fluid. You can't really expect an algorithm to understand why I love "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" but detest most country music. When I added Queen as an influence to my station, I had to thumbs down my way through a bunch of Zeppelin and Boston songs.
1. Rats ~ Pearl Jam (Vs.) 2. All Apologies ~ Nirvana (In Utero) 3. I, Zombie ~ White Zombie (Astro-Creep: 2000) 4. Mumble mumble (i.e. I'm too embarrassed to write it) 5. It Could Be Sweet ~ Portishead (Dummy) 6. Thru The Eyes Of Ruby ~ Smashing Pumpkins (Disconnect - A live bootleg) 7. Are You Gonna Go My Way ~ Lenny Kravitz (I don't even know why this is on there?!) 8. We Only Come Out At Night ~ Smashing Pumpkins (MCIS) 9. Face Of The Earth ~ Days of the New (Days of the New) 10. Kaiowas ~ Sepultura (Chaos A.D.) 11. We Who Are Not As Others ~ Sepultura (Chaos A.D.) My shuffle function seems to be wonky! 12. Endless Quest ~ Enigma (ewww I really should delete all this Enigma, I thought it might be nice and relaxing but its just odd) 13. Right of Way ~ The Von Bondies (Pawn Shoppe Heart) (Impulse CD buying based off a song on the radio at the time. bad idea) 14. Black Hole Sun ~ Soundgarden (Superunknown) Thats more like it! 15. mumble mumble again 16. Patichio Medley ~ Smashing Pumpkins (Zero EP [UK]) 17. He's My Thing ~ Babes in Toyland (Compilation album) 18. United States ~ Smashing Pumpkins (Zeitgeist) 19. Knuckle Duster (Radio 2-B) ~ White Zombie (La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol 1) 20. Sinfony ~ Smashing Pumpkins (Earphoria)
Anyone notice a recurring theme? ^_^ Used to be a rabid SP fan. Still like their past work but have definately gotten over that phase. Didn't even go to see them live earlier this year (They've only played Chch, NZ like twice total ever and once was before my time so that is a big thing for me!)
I remember reading an alumnae quarterly awhile ago that said that my college sharply reduced the number of freshman midsummer roommate-change requests by dropping all of their complicated formulas for matching incoming freshmen based on things like family income & so on. They replaced all those things with a "what are your top ten favorite music albums?" and suddenly everybody got along just fine.
Haha thats a wonderful idea jinx! At the very least its a safer way of ensuring people will get along than based off family income etc. Though I'd be kinda scared to see what kind of roommate I'd get if I listed my top 10 favourite albums!!
Well at that age, top 10 albums is a REALLY IMPORTANT QUESTION, so I'm not at all surprised. Stick all the Bob Marley guys together and let them plan a revolution~
that sounds pretty brilliant. I'd do it more "favorite shows", but that music thing sounds perfect.
I don't see why they'd use family income as a factor anyway. "Hey, you're parents are rich! My parents are rich!". For my school, I'm not sure what criteria they used, but they did ask us if we smoked/drank/tolerated that sort of thing.
edit: Now I'm tempted to list my top ten albums. I don't know enough about music to even have a top ten. Hmm....
Bry, I could possibly I haven't checked. It's just the stress of having to thumbs down a great song. I wish there was a, 'I like it but not for this station' option which essentially did the same thing. Maybe a sideways thumb. lol.
This may not be the right discussion for this, but I couldn't find any mention of them on this site and thought people might be at least a little interested.
Les Horribles Cernettes - the first band on the internet
Well, I'm proud to say that I believe I've saved LHC. :^) Soon after the Cernettes' comeback at the Hardronic festival in 2007, I heard that one of them had moved to the UK, so they were seeking a third Cernette in order to have this LHC ready to perform for the startup of the other LHC. Ever since, whenever I've encountered a female at CERN who claims to be able to sing (which happened exactly once, until recently) I've suggested she join the Cernettes. Well, a couple of weeks ago at the launch of the not-yet-official CERN Improv club, I met somebody who mentioned she used to sing professionally, so I immediately told her about the Cernettes, and in the same conversation she asked somebody else if she could do some volunteer work at CERN, and, well, last night she had her first rehearsal as a Cernette. Just in time for them to perform in at various events in October (and possibly September 10? I'm not sure what's planned in the way of entertainment for that day) hopefully not clashing too much with the JoCo concerts.
Yay!
Now I wish I'd taken a picture of her with the ponkey while I still had it. I don't know why I didn't think of that, I must have been too distracted by the guy in the Portal shirt. (And yes, I will put my photos up eventually... I seem to be busy all the evenings this week though.)
By the way, Gamith, did you notice the new song, Every Proton of You? It was added to the site some time between Hardronic 2007 and when I noticed it a few months ago.
@Angelastic: Thanks for finding this thread and reviving (as I was just now prepared to search for it). However, my post is for Ben Folds fans: New album coming out in 1 month! Hurray! :-D
I was going to write, "Congrats, Molly!" but then I realized that she most likely isn't going to see my post anyway. Pity I'm too lazy to congratulate her via something she'll actually read. Still, that's big news!
Necromatic bump, specifically towards our Australian brethren ... can anyone find me an actual damn MP3 of "King Kong" by Tripod? Pandora has been giving me this daily for a week now, and it's brilliant. However, it is impossible to find a way to get the damn song here in the US any other way other than waiting for it on Pandora. Amazon has the import CD available for between 21 and 65 dollars, and I just want the damn song so I can tell other people what I keep laughing at.~
so it is. I went through all the motions except to actually purchase so I thought it worked. I was fooled by the dollar sign. Supposedly you can get it off iTunes I'm trying on my iPhone and if I can get to a wifi network soon I'll let you know. BTW because you are MitchO, If I do get it downloaded and you for whatever reason are unable, I will make a copy available to you.
Someone in New York please go to this and report so I can live vicariously through you. bleu 7/25/2009 8:00 PM at Joes Pub - Record Release -w- Jim Boggia 425 Lafayette Street, New York City, New York 10003 Cost: $15
Okay, wanted to get in on that 20 random songs-thing.
1. Under Den Sidste Hvide Bro - TV-2 (Under the Last White Bridge) 2. Lilly - Moby 3. Ukulele de Chocobo - Nobuo Uematsu 4. Patterns - Paul Simon 5. Surfing the Warm Industry - Kashmir 6. Hard to Make You Mine - Tim Christensen 7. Fire Coming Out of a Monkey's Head - Gorillaz (strangely appropriate for a JoCo-forum, innit? 8. Heigh-ho - Tom Waits 9. You're an Angel - Annette Bjergfeldt 10. De-Evolving - Jonathan Coulton 11. Dr. Stephen - Stephen Lynch 12. Kom, Alle V
I thought I'd post this on the off chance that we've got any Bay Area goths in here. I've got an extra ticket for tonight's VNV Nation show in San Francisco. If you'd like the ticket or know someone who would, please let me know.
http://www.last.fm/user/jedielf A good proportion of what I listen to is Australian, so go check these bands out! They deserve more fans
But as you can tell, I'm a massive massive Bob Evans fan. (dodges jokes about how it's a restaurant chain in the US - the guy didn't know about that when he was picking his stage name ... )
The only context in which I've heard of Bob Evans is in the idea of singing 'Follow the Yellow Brick Road' backwards in E-Major while juggling rubber chickens and riding a unicycle made entirely of Bob Evans breakfast sausages. So I'd probably laugh at his stage name more than most.
ETA: Since this is the thread for other music... for any K's Choice or Sarah Bettens fans out there, I've just uploaded quite a few concert videos of them to YouTube (after finally getting around to getting permission) here. I'm still uploading a few others.
Oh seriously? You should visit his myspace page and listen to his latest album here. And he does a mean cover of "Not Fair" by Lily Allen. he played it live on the radio
Although i love JoCo's songs to death I also have been a Buckethead fan for years, He is an amazing guitarist that can play emotional acoustic songs to make you cry and then rip out a shred that will melt those tears right off your face.
I know what your thinking, a bucket on his head, this means HE MUST NOT be a good guitarist. But what happend to not judging a book my its covers? Also I listen to steve ouimette alot, who some of you may know is anothe great guitarist that has done alot of work for guitar hero.
About a week and a half ago I went to see Kate Miller-Heidke live at the Enmore Theatre. The day was obscenely hot and that night at the gig was no exception. No one in my immediate vicinity danced except for me.
And most of you have probably never heard of her before, so I'll give you a few links to some of her songs on YouTube:
Words: Last Day On Earth: Space They Cannot Touch: But my FAVOURITE song of hers is "Are You F***ing Kidding Me?": (Yeah uhhh, NSFW)
Yes, she's a classically trained opera singer, too.
Hmm. No particular order, and I realize very little of it is new...
Jonathan Coulton, of course. The Beatles. And all of the individual Beatles' solo work. Bond. Elton. Billy Joel. Alexa Ray Joel. I used to have a bunch of Weird Al, but I gave it away. I like Molly Lewis' cover of Poker Face better than Lady Gaga's version. Sam Kinnison (yes, he did music). Neil Young. SuperTramp. Harry Chapin. Tom Smith: most esp. "A Boy and His Frog". If that doesn't bring a tear to your eye you must be some kind of robot overlord. The Monkees. Jalea Bates (anybody else know who that is?) Various soundtracks from Star Wars to LOTR to The Sound of Music. I'm also a sucker for Gershwin, the blues, and Rogers & Hammerstein.
My guilty secret, which I shouldn't even mention, is that I like the music I write (until I hate it). I know it's crass, and it marks me as an egotistical asswipe, but I can't help it. At the time I'm writing them I invest a lot of "me" in the effort, so my "favorite song" is usually the very last one I actually wrote, even though I don't record them very well. I know what the song should sound like, and that's what gets stuck in my head. I wonder if that's true of other songwriters, and they just don't admit it...?
I love "A Boy and His Frog". Even wrote a parody (well, not technically a parody, but a song set to the same tune) of it which turns out to not fit it very well because I was just going by the short bit of tune I had in my head at the time (which is, incidentally, the only reason he hasn't sung my lyrics yet. I paid him to, because I'm an egotistical asswipe.)
OK, that settles it. I'm going to have to try to cover that song for piano. I'm not sure anyone has. I guess the obvious reason is that there's really only one way to interpret the song. If you're going to try to actually sing it, it HAS to be as Kermit. I wasn't sure I could do the voice until just now. My wife was sitting with her back to me and I told her I wanted to try something out on her, then I sung the first couple of verses. She turned around with the funniest "WTF face" you ever saw. She said it was effective. Now I'm not sure I can get through the song without breaking down...
Somebody sent me that video a while back. It made me cry. But what really got under my skin is that the video has been flagged for adult content. WTF???? I wrote YouTube an email complaining about that but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. :-(
I'm going to have to arrange it and practice first. In the meantime, I'm putting a horribly melodramatic song on YouTube. Dr. Lindyke was written ages ago when we first started writing. My note says it was written in 1980 or thereabouts (I didn't keep track of dates until 1982).
I have somewhere to be tonight, so I'm posting this before the YouTube video is done uploading. I'm simply going to put it in an easily escapable situation and trust that everything goes according to plan.
A friend invited me to see That 1 Guy tonight. Pretty amazing stuff. And it's obvious how much he enjoys what he's doing. I love to see performers having fun. :-)
Reviving a dead horse (saw a pointer here from another topic). I have quite varied tastes, with most genres hit. I have my entire iTunes collection available for viewing at http://thegrallas.com/SimMusic/.
Like everyone, my tastes have moved around a bit over the years, but I guess my staples have been, for rock, Talking Heads, (the great) Elvis Costello, Warren Zevon, The Clash; for folk, Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan; and for dawg, David Grisman. More recently, I've been really enjoying Jill Sobule, Gogol Bordello and ETHEL, amongst too many others to name. I am very happy to have picked up new artists recently through W00tstock and the cruise. I "hate" Amazon for their $5 album promotions.
I get to hear a lot of new music by subscribing to the following four podcasts, which post a song a day each:
The Current Song of the Day - Minnesota Public Radio
KCRW's Today's Top Tune
KEXP Song of the Day
MP3 of the Day: A free Spinner-approved MP3 download of artists you need to know.
Comments
For slightly more detail, here's the link to the description of the Music Genome Project on Pandora -- they don't get too technical to be understood, I think. A quick read (five paragraphs), and pretty interesting.
Relevant quotes:
1. Rats ~ Pearl Jam (Vs.)
2. All Apologies ~ Nirvana (In Utero)
3. I, Zombie ~ White Zombie (Astro-Creep: 2000)
4. Mumble mumble (i.e. I'm too embarrassed to write it)
5. It Could Be Sweet ~ Portishead (Dummy)
6. Thru The Eyes Of Ruby ~ Smashing Pumpkins (Disconnect - A live bootleg)
7. Are You Gonna Go My Way ~ Lenny Kravitz (I don't even know why this is on there?!)
8. We Only Come Out At Night ~ Smashing Pumpkins (MCIS)
9. Face Of The Earth ~ Days of the New (Days of the New)
10. Kaiowas ~ Sepultura (Chaos A.D.)
11. We Who Are Not As Others ~ Sepultura (Chaos A.D.) My shuffle function seems to be wonky!
12. Endless Quest ~ Enigma (ewww I really should delete all this Enigma, I thought it might be nice and relaxing but its just odd)
13. Right of Way ~ The Von Bondies (Pawn Shoppe Heart) (Impulse CD buying based off a song on the radio at the time. bad idea)
14. Black Hole Sun ~ Soundgarden (Superunknown) Thats more like it!
15. mumble mumble again
16. Patichio Medley ~ Smashing Pumpkins (Zero EP [UK])
17. He's My Thing ~ Babes in Toyland (Compilation album)
18. United States ~ Smashing Pumpkins (Zeitgeist)
19. Knuckle Duster (Radio 2-B) ~ White Zombie (La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol 1)
20. Sinfony ~ Smashing Pumpkins (Earphoria)
Anyone notice a recurring theme? ^_^
Used to be a rabid SP fan. Still like their past work but have definately gotten over that phase. Didn't even go to see them live earlier this year (They've only played Chch, NZ like twice total ever and once was before my time so that is a big thing for me!)
TBH though thats not really indicative of my listening habits.
My last.fm will give you a better idea.
I don't see why they'd use family income as a factor anyway. "Hey, you're parents are rich! My parents are rich!". For my school, I'm not sure what criteria they used, but they did ask us if we smoked/drank/tolerated that sort of thing.
edit: Now I'm tempted to list my top ten albums. I don't know enough about music to even have a top ten. Hmm....
I was just watching TMBG's Friday Family podcast and it is pretty good... tin foil robots and sock hand puppets.... they can do it all...
The link.
Yay!
Now I wish I'd taken a picture of her with the ponkey while I still had it. I don't know why I didn't think of that, I must have been too distracted by the guy in the Portal shirt. (And yes, I will put my photos up eventually... I seem to be busy all the evenings this week though.)
By the way, Gamith, did you notice the new song, Every Proton of You? It was added to the site some time between Hardronic 2007 and when I noticed it a few months ago.
BTW because you are MitchO, If I do get it downloaded and you for whatever reason are unable, I will make a copy available to you.
bleu
7/25/2009 8:00 PM at Joes Pub - Record Release -w- Jim Boggia
425 Lafayette Street, New York City, New York 10003
Cost: $15
1. Under Den Sidste Hvide Bro - TV-2 (Under the Last White Bridge)
2. Lilly - Moby
3. Ukulele de Chocobo - Nobuo Uematsu
4. Patterns - Paul Simon
5. Surfing the Warm Industry - Kashmir
6. Hard to Make You Mine - Tim Christensen
7. Fire Coming Out of a Monkey's Head - Gorillaz (strangely appropriate for a JoCo-forum, innit?
8. Heigh-ho - Tom Waits
9. You're an Angel - Annette Bjergfeldt
10. De-Evolving - Jonathan Coulton
11. Dr. Stephen - Stephen Lynch
12. Kom, Alle V
But as you can tell, I'm a massive massive Bob Evans fan. (dodges jokes about how it's a restaurant chain in the US - the guy didn't know about that when he was picking his stage name ... )
ETA: Since this is the thread for other music... for any K's Choice or Sarah Bettens fans out there, I've just uploaded quite a few concert videos of them to YouTube (after finally getting around to getting permission) here. I'm still uploading a few others.
And his "day job" once was (and occasionally still is) the lead singer of Jebediah: if you don't like Bob you may prefer the Jebs
I know what your thinking, a bucket on his head, this means HE MUST NOT be a good guitarist. But what happend to not judging a book my its covers? Also I listen to steve ouimette alot, who some of you may know is anothe great guitarist that has done alot of work for guitar hero.
And most of you have probably never heard of her before, so I'll give you a few links to some of her songs on YouTube:
Words:
Last Day On Earth:
Space They Cannot Touch:
But my FAVOURITE song of hers is "Are You F***ing Kidding Me?":
Yes, she's a classically trained opera singer, too.
And on the 23rd, I'll be going to see THIS: http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/whatson/happy_xmas_war_is_over.aspx
I am FANGIRLING at the line-up!
And if you don't know who any of these people are, you need to listen to more Aussie music!
Jonathan Coulton, of course.
The Beatles. And all of the individual Beatles' solo work.
Bond. Elton. Billy Joel. Alexa Ray Joel. I used to have a bunch of Weird Al, but I gave it away.
I like Molly Lewis' cover of Poker Face better than Lady Gaga's version.
Sam Kinnison (yes, he did music). Neil Young. SuperTramp. Harry Chapin.
Tom Smith: most esp. "A Boy and His Frog". If that doesn't bring a tear to your eye you must be some kind of robot overlord.
The Monkees.
Jalea Bates (anybody else know who that is?)
Various soundtracks from Star Wars to LOTR to The Sound of Music. I'm also a sucker for Gershwin, the blues, and Rogers & Hammerstein.
My guilty secret, which I shouldn't even mention, is that I like the music I write (until I hate it). I know it's crass, and it marks me as an egotistical asswipe, but I can't help it. At the time I'm writing them I invest a lot of "me" in the effort, so my "favorite song" is usually the very last one I actually wrote, even though I don't record them very well. I know what the song should sound like, and that's what gets stuck in my head. I wonder if that's true of other songwriters, and they just don't admit it...?
Dammit...and now I had to go listen to it on Youtube.
Somebody sent me that video a while back. It made me cry. But what really got under my skin is that the video has been flagged for adult content. WTF???? I wrote YouTube an email complaining about that but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. :-(
I have somewhere to be tonight, so I'm posting this before the YouTube video is done uploading. I'm simply going to put it in an easily escapable situation and trust that everything goes according to plan.
Like everyone, my tastes have moved around a bit over the years, but I guess my staples have been, for rock, Talking Heads, (the great) Elvis Costello, Warren Zevon, The Clash; for folk, Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan; and for dawg, David Grisman. More recently, I've been really enjoying Jill Sobule, Gogol Bordello and ETHEL, amongst too many others to name. I am very happy to have picked up new artists recently through W00tstock and the cruise. I "hate" Amazon for their $5 album promotions.
I get to hear a lot of new music by subscribing to the following four podcasts, which post a song a day each:
- The Current Song of the Day - Minnesota Public Radio
- KCRW's Today's Top Tune
- KEXP Song of the Day
- MP3 of the Day: A free Spinner-approved MP3 download of artists you need to know.
I also frequently hit up the Mountain Stage Song of the Week site for a folk kick.