In my never ending quest to find music that sounds just like the music I own but that I haven’t heard before I’ve stumbled across the Music Genome Project (MGP). Much as the Human Genome Project gave us a map of everything that makes us “us”, the MGP gives a “genetic” map of what a song is made up of. Songs are assigned vectors that contains “genes” that describe what the song is made up of. Vectors contain information like: is the instrumentation acoustic, electric, or a mix of both, is the song vocal-centric, are “hand claps” used, is syncopation used, are vocal harmonies used, is it in a major or minor key, what tempo is it, is the singer female or male, and just how much cowbell is there in the song.
Simple Pop songs can be described in 150-250 “genes” whereas more complex music like Jazz can contain up to 400 “genes.” It takes at least one music expert to analyze a song and come up with it’s description, often it takes a team. The results are consolidated in a database at the genome project’s parent company - Savage Beast Technologies. (Whose website seems to be down as I write this.)
Pandora Radio is a company that leverages the MGP and allows computer and phone users to listen to free music, chosen to match their tastes, via commercial free radio anywhere they have an internet connection. Once you provide them with a seed band they will create a custom “radio station” for you. And much like on your TiVo, you can then give each song that plays a thumbs up or thumbs down to further define your tastes.
What iTunes genius playlists are to music you own, Pandora radio is to music you don’t. Pandora will introduce you to lots of new music that you are sure to like, and provide you with easy one click links to buy stuff you hear. Pandora does not allow users to freely access their database though, so you will not be able to search their database yourself to try to mine for new bands. I believe this to be some sort of a licensing issue, and frankly I’m perfectly happy with the incredibly powerful feature that they have given to me for free and for all of the totally free music that they allow me to listen to on both my Mac and my iPhone!
If you haven’t done it yet, download Pandora’s application for the iPhone from the App Store (also provided for free). It’s a must have as an infinite extension to the music collection you already carry around, and in my opinion it beats out AOL radio (Sorry, Dan... it’s a good app too). It’s interface is almost identical to the UI you’re used to from the iPod or Remote applications that Apple provides, and sound quality is very good.
