Your Personal Radio Station
The last few days, I have been playing with two web sites that will create a "radio station" customized to your musical tastes. Both sites ask for a favorite performer or song. Based on your selection, the web site will create a playlist of similar music for your "radio station". Then of course, the website will play the music for you. Note that I found these web sites from a SF Chronicle article.
Each website will allow you to take a short demo run. If you want to use the radio stations for an extended period, you need to register with the site. The registration is free and short. They do not ask for a credit card. Of course, they have more fully featured versions that cost money, but I selected the free version. Like all of these registrations, they will ask for your e-mail address and a password and a few other details. I registered a few days ago and I have not received any unwanted e-mail from them.
The radio stations are also a good way to find new artists. I enjoy discovering new performers. I usually either talk to friends or will go to amazon.com. At amazon.com I will find a cd that I have recently been listening to. On that same page, amazon.com will have a list of other cd's that users have also liked. I have generally liked the same artists that other users have listed. For example, if you look at this page from amazon.com, you will see other artists/cds listed under "Customers who bought this item also bought".
The two sites take different approaches which I will discuss below:
www.last.fm - On this site, the music lists are user driven. In other words, users determine which artists are most like other artists. Thus, when you pick a favorite artist, the software will check what other users thought were similar artists and then generate a playlist for you. This playlist is similar to the lists I have found on amazon.com. This is good and bad. It is music I will like, but I may not find many new artists that I could not find on amazon.com.
www.pandora.com - This site is driven by the music genome project. In 2000, a number of music lovers rated songs in different categories (melody, harmony and rhythm, instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, etc). When you pick a favorite artist, it matches songs that is rated similarly in the various categories. On this station, the playlist includes mostly artists that I have never heard of. Having said that, it does not seem like the music is as good. Just because a song has a similar harmony and rhythm, does not mean that it is as good a song.
Each website allows you to create multiple stations. For example, you can create a Bach station, a Beatles station, etc. I have not found a way to do it on Pandora, but last.fm allows you to add several artists to one playlist. Just for giggles, I created a station with Deep Purple and Frank Sinatra. I started with Deep Purple and it selected hard rock songs. After I added Frank Sinatra, it switched to male crooners (Bobby Darren songs). It never seemed to try to find common ground or to go back to hard rock songs. I only listened to 5 or 6 songs, maybe if I let it go longer, it might have done something different.
In summary, if I just want to listen to some music, I will enjoy last.fm better. If I want to discover new artists, I will use pandora.com.
Each website will allow you to take a short demo run. If you want to use the radio stations for an extended period, you need to register with the site. The registration is free and short. They do not ask for a credit card. Of course, they have more fully featured versions that cost money, but I selected the free version. Like all of these registrations, they will ask for your e-mail address and a password and a few other details. I registered a few days ago and I have not received any unwanted e-mail from them.
The radio stations are also a good way to find new artists. I enjoy discovering new performers. I usually either talk to friends or will go to amazon.com. At amazon.com I will find a cd that I have recently been listening to. On that same page, amazon.com will have a list of other cd's that users have also liked. I have generally liked the same artists that other users have listed. For example, if you look at this page from amazon.com, you will see other artists/cds listed under "Customers who bought this item also bought".
The two sites take different approaches which I will discuss below:
www.last.fm - On this site, the music lists are user driven. In other words, users determine which artists are most like other artists. Thus, when you pick a favorite artist, the software will check what other users thought were similar artists and then generate a playlist for you. This playlist is similar to the lists I have found on amazon.com. This is good and bad. It is music I will like, but I may not find many new artists that I could not find on amazon.com.
www.pandora.com - This site is driven by the music genome project. In 2000, a number of music lovers rated songs in different categories (melody, harmony and rhythm, instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, etc). When you pick a favorite artist, it matches songs that is rated similarly in the various categories. On this station, the playlist includes mostly artists that I have never heard of. Having said that, it does not seem like the music is as good. Just because a song has a similar harmony and rhythm, does not mean that it is as good a song.
Each website allows you to create multiple stations. For example, you can create a Bach station, a Beatles station, etc. I have not found a way to do it on Pandora, but last.fm allows you to add several artists to one playlist. Just for giggles, I created a station with Deep Purple and Frank Sinatra. I started with Deep Purple and it selected hard rock songs. After I added Frank Sinatra, it switched to male crooners (Bobby Darren songs). It never seemed to try to find common ground or to go back to hard rock songs. I only listened to 5 or 6 songs, maybe if I let it go longer, it might have done something different.
In summary, if I just want to listen to some music, I will enjoy last.fm better. If I want to discover new artists, I will use pandora.com.
posted by Steve @ 8:49 AM
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