This is a quickie. Don’t know if it will pick up any traction but I am curious to hear anyone’s thoughts. As I was just starting to listen to The Plastic Ono Band album this afternoon (tip to RTH for reminding me how great this recording is) when I was notified that iTunes had an update. I did the update without even seeing what it was and had to shut iTunes down.
When it came back up it had this “Genius Sidebar” that makes recommendations and playlists. I was still humming Lennon’s Hold On in my head so I used that to create my first Genius playlist. I let it spin without looking at what was selected. Interesting. Although I could kinda feel a flow I couldn’t really put my finger on how it did what it did. And then Funhouse came on.
Shortly after Talking Head’s Air. Oddly though it is the live version from the Stardust Ballroom concert.
Wha?
Anyone have any thoughts or insight on what goes on here?
Another one after the fold.
I turned it off ASAP. I find the concept revolting. I am the genius in control of my music playlists.
I think there is a setting that will show you tracks in the store you don’t yet own that would fit into your set – so they really just want you to buy more from them…
It sounds like a version of Pandora that plays your music instead. I’m unbelievably cynical when it comes to Apple and my guess is that the true genius behind this is that Apple has finally found a way to scour all your music files, get that information back to them and from here on out they can effectively target advertising to you. I think access to someone’s entire music collection, and even knowing what really gets played and what gets ignored would be the kind of data you could sell for a lot of money to other companies. That’s the kind of marketing information a comapany would pay you for, and Apple found a way to get it for free.
To be fair. I had to opt in and it was pretty clear that information was going to be going back and forth. I can also opt out anytime I want. The only advertising I get is for music and that doesn’t bug me.
I’m liking it. I don’t have time to make my own play lists and hitting shuffle on my gazillion songs often leaves me running for the skip button.
I imagine the novelty will wear off but for now it’s like a randomization with rhyme and reason.
The algorithm obviously includes year, band members, genre and appears to base each subsequent choice not only on the original source but also the song previously played. Hence The Stooges coming from The Doors.
But there’s more going on.
i have a genius that comes to my house and flips my records for me. I always tell him what record to put on next. Sometimes my wife chimes in.
Given that you can only make playlists based on songs available through iTunes, I assume that it’s basically just a slightly tweaked “People who bought A also bought B” app.
What kind of “genius” would choose take 2 of “Dominoes”?
I downloaded and installed the updates for this, but didn’t feel like waiting for the process of it sending all the information about my music and stopped it there. I’d be interested if people find it worthwhile; maybe I’ll let it do its thing.
Maudlin’s second list brings up a possible interesting test case. Would playing the Dukes of Stratosphear songs bring up their inspirations if you had them in your songlist? If it’s doing that music genome thing that Pandora worked on, that should happen at some point, right?
Pandora was always hit or miss for me. A lot of times I’d wonder how it was making the connections it did, or would notice that approving a song would suddenly send things spiraling off into a direction I didn’t want it to go.
I’ll admit, I’m a fan of this Genius thing, with qualifications. I have little-to-no use for the suggestions of other iTunes songs to purchase. Don’t tell me what I want in life, iTunes! But I do think the Playlist function is nifty, even if the resulting playlist isn’t nearly as eclectic as I’d like, but I suppose that’s inevitable. I agree with Sammy’s sentiment:
The take 2 solo acoustic of Dominoes is really great and this is actually the kind of pick that makes me scratch my head. I have four versions of Dominoes (one of which is a false start of sorts and records the moment he titles the song). So of these options why take 2?
alexmagic asks posits
A songlist based on Pale and Precious turned up both The Beach Boys She Knows me Too Well and Cabin Essence.
You want real random-ness? Try thrifting for music, people! The last week has seen me add Merle Haggard’s tribute to Bob Wills album, Neil Diamond’s second Bang LP, a small stack of steel drum music, the 1970 pop-psych efforts of the guy who got his start singing “Itsy-Bitsy, Teeny-Weeny, Yellow Polka-dot Bikini” and an *awesome* Larrry Graham LP from 1973. All of which cost me about $6.00.
Steel drum music? At $6, you still got took.