The Cheerios Dilemna

Recently I wrote asking for suggestions for what to get with the iTunes Music Store credit I got off a box of Cheerios. Several people chimed in with great suggestions. Well I'm back in that same spot again. I had to buy a new box of Cheerios.

But I found, via Trey Givens, the perfect solution.

It's called Pandora and it's part of something called 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 5 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.

The way the Pandora component works is you enter the name of an artist or song that you like, and it offers suggestions for other similar music you might also like. Since it's based on detailed analysis, it's a bit more sophisticated, and I have to say accurate, than something like Amazon's if you bought that you might like this.

This is sure to provide hours of fun and exposure to some great music I've never hear before.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 02:06 PM | No Comments | Add Comment