AllMusic.com's Tapestry Playlist Generator
December 25, 2005 9:51 PM   Subscribe

AllMusic.com's "Tapestry" playlist generator/recommendation doohickey has a demo that is open to the public. Through this page you can generate playlists based on similar songs, or by building a series of Styles, Tones, and Themes to get a specific list of music you want to check out. I really hope someone like iTunes can integrate this info so that I can hit one button on my iPod and generate intelligent playlists on the fly.
posted by .:DataWhat?:. (17 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: self link.



 
Also: If you just want to listen to music that's related to some artist or song in terms of the way it sounds, you can't do better than Pandora. It's pretty amazing, and based on the Music Genome Project.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:21 PM on December 25, 2005


It feels like there's something wrong here.
posted by interrobang at 11:01 PM on December 25, 2005


I wish I could hit one button on my iPod and recieve double that in money. ALL THE TIME.

But I don't have an iPod. You guys are lucky.

I've messed with Pandora a bit, and Audioscrobbler/Last.fm I've followed a few reccomendations from it, but they've all been pretty stale. How can a computer figure out that the thing in common I like about Candi Staton and Can?

I realize this particular post is in regards to playlists, and who knows, these automated (with "thematic" and "tonal" user tags) jobbies sometimes yield interesting results. But, then again, I like just asking people (online or in person) who have similar interests what they reccomend, since that'll always yield more complex,interesting, and personally directed information.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 11:15 PM on December 25, 2005


Er, "figure out the thing I like in common between Candi Staton and Can" is what I meant. I didn't mean to allege I actually knew what that thing was. 'Cause I don't.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 11:17 PM on December 25, 2005


Oh wait, yeah I do: Yelling.

I like yelling.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 11:17 PM on December 25, 2005


Here I was hoping this had something to do with Carole King.
posted by Dag Maggot at 11:19 PM on December 25, 2005


Yeah well the difficult thing with all these recommendations is serendipity. They always end up recommending stuff you already have, if you use them that way.

When you ask a friend to recommend something, they think hard to come up with something that not only you will like, but that will impress you with their breadth of knowledge and taste. That often is actually far more interesting than just saying "You like Autechre so you might like their other six albums". Really? Well I never.

Audioscrobbler does seem to work better than that though, although I don't know if it is by design. When I let it loose on my record collection, using amarok (which has some excellent audioscrobbler integration), it doesn't half come up with some weird playlists.
posted by winjer at 11:24 PM on December 25, 2005


It feels like there's something wrong here.

Ummm... Yeah.
posted by thrakintosh at 4:44 AM on December 26, 2005


last night a computer program saved my life?
posted by fuq at 7:37 AM on December 26, 2005


So ironic and sardonic blues are apparently totally different. This is just plain silly. And...giddy? Giddyap! Humdrum hullabaloo!
posted by kozad at 8:22 AM on December 26, 2005


I quite like software like this, though I'd greatly prefer if it was integrated into my media player.

As much as my friends will tend to do a good job at recommending music for me, they've proven unwilling to man the controls of my mp3 player, 24/7.
posted by I Love Tacos at 8:32 AM on December 26, 2005


Automatic music suggestion has got to be the lamest thing ever invented.
posted by HTuttle at 8:39 AM on December 26, 2005


Automatic music suggestion has got to be the lamest thing ever invented.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

use Mefi::MusicPostSnarker
posted by srboisvert at 9:05 AM on December 26, 2005


There's just no getting away from it: Mining the world's trove of recorded music for music tht you're going to not only like, but love, is hard damned work. You have to dig and dig and dig, and you have to listen to a lot of crap. Your best friends will recommend CDs that -- once you hear them -- will make you cease to consider those people your best friends. Because most people's taste in music -- well, let me put it this way. Most people don't really CARE about music as much as you and I do. AMG's lists of attributes (including the above-ridiculed "giddy") are so lame, you have to think the whole "tapestry" thing was somebody's girlfriend's idea. (In fact, the name "Tapestry" is a highly chick-like choice of title, suggesting as it does the dreary Carol King album that droned out of every female's record player in the 1970s -- until Joni Mitchell's "Blue" came out.)
The upside is, that finding the music you love can be a joyous lifelong quest. And when you finally go down that thousandth dark ally and find something new that delights you, the sensation is as still as good as anything in life.
The downside is, there are no shortcuts.
posted by Faze at 12:07 PM on December 26, 2005


Clearly some people like the idea and some people hate it. Myself, I've found great music through Last.FM, though I do find that the more music I have available in iTunes the less I feel like listening to Last.FM radio. (Last.FM also has the geek-out quotient of endlessly monitoring your own favorites list, which shouldn't be discounted.)

I wasn't too impressed with Pandora (it's good at finding a certain sound but I didn't find compelling music that way). I've tried Upto11.net (which bases its music similarity on who has what artists shared via P2P), Gnoosic and WebJay, with intermittent success.

Honestly, many of my favorite tunes or albums have come as a result of personal recommendations, or listening to radio over at Metachat. Having a real human being say "this is good" will always trump some sort of mechanical turk approach.

This tool Tapestry has a terrible UI so far, so on that basis alone I predict it won't go far. Webjay isn't much easier to use, but has a social element this lacks.

The thing is, Tapestry and Pandora have something that Last.FM lacks, while Last.FM has something that they lack. Given that the "perfect" recommendation is probably unattainable, and that a personal recommendation will always have a stronger emotional association for someone, I still think these can be useful as long as you're cognizant of the limitations.
posted by dhartung at 12:39 PM on December 26, 2005


you have to think the whole "tapestry" thing was somebody's girlfriend's idea. (In fact, the name "Tapestry" is a highly chick-like choice of title, suggesting as it does the dreary Carol King album that droned out of every female's record player in the 1970s -- until Joni Mitchell's "Blue" came out.)

Jeez, Faze, issues with women much?
posted by jokeefe at 1:02 PM on December 26, 2005


MeTa ... bitches.
posted by menace303 at 1:18 PM on December 26, 2005


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