The Music Genome Project

Atomic Cowboy

Atomic Cowboy

It Wandered In From the Wastes
Check this out: http://www.pandora.com/

This is a virtual radio station. You punch in a few songs that you like, and the player will generated a station that plays that kind of music. You continue to finely adjust things, marking individual songs as thumbs up or thumbs down, and the station shifts until it perfectly fits your preferences.

The best thing is it's free!
 
I had to pretend to be a New York resident... While this is a very cool gizmo, I feel very dirty 'cause of that :-/

It seems pretty good, so far.
 
havent really looked into it, but it looks ok. it's probably a good way to discover some new artists. there are some heavy slowdowns though. sometimes it took a while before it figured out what next to play.

i went from Pantera to Sepultura to Noise Therapy to Mudvayne to Megadeath to Earshot (never heard of it, but the song wasn't too bad. not really good either though) to Down (never heard of it, but again it wasn't too bad & not really good either.) to Disturbed.
and then it locked me out because i skipped too fast because i wanted to find some songs to give a thumbs down to (due to a license limitation it seems).

however i truly hate the fact that it's flash + browser based. kinda kills the usefulness for me. while it's harder for them to create a real standalone application, i'd prefer it that way.

in it's current form, it's more something i'd use @ work, than @ home. but in that capacity, it's too bad you can't choose the bitrate (since not every employer will like using this kind of inet radio at full quality).
 
I'll use last.fm if I want a service like that, thanks.
I put in a load of decent metal bands with the only death metal bands being Morbid Angel, Strapping Young Lad bordering it a bit in style at some minor points and Death being different from most Death Metal bands, but mainly more melodic metal like Opeth, Iced Earth and Nevermore, and thrash metal like Metallica, Testament and what would have been Dark Angel, if it weren't for the fact that they didn't have any Dark Angel.
Then they first presented me with four songs from four different artists I put in, with me liking four, and disliking the Dio-era Sabbath song they gave me.

Then they present me with Death Metal, the kind I don't like. I click dislike. They then go to Gorgoroth, black metal, which not only had a huge volume difference from the song before it, but also was not really like any of the music I'd put in, so another dislike. Then they give me the Death Metal I disliked again. I click dislike and want to skip the track.
Then they tell me I can't skip it because of license issues.
Then I tell them to fuck off.

In conclusion: volume is inconsistent, their music suggestions don't work for me and I couldn't skip enough to get it to a decent level.

I'll just stay with last.fm
 
Registering with a US zipcode would take away those license issues, their FAQ says.
 
Registering and PAYING I believe, Jebus. I've been running it for two days straight now, and I've got it smoothed out pretty good - I've got a "classic rock for rolling down the highways" sort of theme going with a lot of new stuff tossed in. The formula for finding new music involves instruments, beat, types of vocals, etc. I don't recognize the stuff half the time, but I love the sound.

I agree that having it through the browser can be annoying. Hopefully they'll correct that at some point.
 
Jebus said:
Registering with a US zipcode would take away those license issues, their FAQ says.
Click to expand...
No, their FAQ states that they require a US zipcode to offer you music at all.
Besides, I registered with a US zipcode, it didn't matter.
 
I sometimes use pandora when at school and I'm bored. Their library of my taste in music is very limited, and it quickly, like Sander suggests songs that are just not right.

It's nice, and a bit funny, that so many (Yes, two is many in my book, I rarely run into any) metal heads are here. Cheers,

Nova
 
Aye, I tried the service and had the same problems as everyone eles. I have a short attention span often with music so I like to listen for a bit, rate and move on. However, after about 6 songs of that, it kicked me off, saying I exceeded the license or whatever. Meh
 
I have to admit, it's not bad. My only real problem is that it keeps playing songs by whatever artists I've put in, not music like the artists I've put in, so I'm basically just hearing stuff I've already got right now, and I can't skip. But at least it's not playing Korn or some shit like that.
 
Last.fm was better, but they've resorted to using plugins and such, which is not a welcome change from what they had before. Now pretty much all you have is Pandora, unless you want to download software for the express purpose of letting a website know what you're listening to. It would be a lot better if more control was given over the music, but as it is it's a decent way to catch something fresh, even if you have to suffer some repetition and bad suggestions.

Whenever a bad song plays, I just turn it down and play my own music, then turn it up once a new song comes along. Seems to work for me.
 
Pop said:
Last.fm was better, but they've resorted to using plugins and such, which is not a welcome change from what they had before. Now pretty much all you have is Pandora, unless you want to download software for the express purpose of letting a website know what you're listening to. It would be a lot better if more control was given over the music, but as it is it's a decent way to catch something fresh, even if you have to suffer some repetition and bad suggestions.

Whenever a bad song plays, I just turn it down and play my own music, then turn it up once a new song comes along. Seems to work for me.
Click to expand...
I'd rather listen to just my own music than to have to constantly switch between two applications, and having to adjust sound levels constantly as well.
 
Yeah, I ended up just listening to it the background until something new came along.

Anyway, thanks for this Atomic Cowboy, I've already found 3 bands I'm going to look into now that sound pretty good. Always glad to find new ways to find awesome music :D
 
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