« That's Krall, Folks! | Home Page | Clear Memory of "Fog" »
April 03, 2008
Internet Radio at its Best
In 2001, a group of musicologists and music-loving techies established the Music Genome Project, an effort to analyze tens of thousands of songs (ranging from chart-toppers to unknowns) based on every stylistic nuance possible, including melody, rhythm, lyrics, vocals, arrangement, and instrumentation, among others. Each song was assigned its very own "genetic makeup" - a musical fingerprint, if you will.
The result of all of this hard work came to fruition in 2005, with the introduction of PANDORA - the Music Genome Project's addition the Internet radio trend. I think it's one of the best Internet radio sites around.
You see, most Internet radio services assume that our musical tastes can be defined simply by genre, time period, or some other random aspect - even intended audience. When listening to one of these services, you're quite likely to hear a majority of songs that only somewhat resemble the kind of music that you like, as well as that same awesomely bad tune over and over again - and you're powerless to stop it.
The Music Genome Project, on the other hand, has realized that musical tastes actually have a lot more to do with the intricacies of style than anything else - certainly not image - and therefore should not be generalized; after all, no one's musical tastes are exactly the same. It has also realized that to provide excellent and individualized playlists, a service has to make use of listener feedback - and in a split-second, at that.
Here's how it works: Just enter the names of your favorite songs, artists, or composers, and Pandora will quickly scan its entire database to create your own personal radio stations of music with similar qualities. Once you begin listening to songs, you'll have the option to tag them with a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down." Any thumbs down-designated songs will be not play on your personal radio stations again, and you're allowed to skip six songs per hour. Plus, Pandora will use both the positive and negative feedback to immediately adjust the playlists to suit your style. You'll discover new artists and songs to love, and - the real draw - you'll never have to listen to awesomely bad music again!
So try it out, and let me know what you think!
Posted by EricaB at April 3, 2008 04:25 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.darienlibrary.org/cgi-bin/MT/mt-tb.cgi/109
Comments
Thanks I tried it and I love Pandora--listen whenever I can! It has changed my life - well not really but it sure makes it more enjoyable.
Posted by: Anonymous at April 4, 2008 04:25 PM