Beats the pants off the Alan Parsons Project
The Music Genome Project still strikes me as a tad too academic an idea - I guess that's the point - but at least it's given birth to a killer way to listen to music online.
Pandora asks you to name a favorite artist or song. It will then create a radio station for you based on the exhausting research the MGP provides (my "Janie Jones Radio" just played "Waggy" by blink-182 because it features "hard rock roots, punk influences, a subtle use of vocal harmony, mild rhythmic syncopation and a vocal-centric aesthetic" - academic). As songs play on the station, you can give a thumbs up or down to their choices; this allows Pandora to tweak the station to your taste (I love the near-shame elicited by Pandora when you disapprove of a song: "Sorry about that. We'll try something else, and we'll never play that song on this station again."). If you really like the song, there's a link to buy the song on iTunes or the album on Amazon.
Best of all you can enjoy it for free. I believe it started out with a 10-hour limit unless you subcribed, but a simple free registration can now give you all the subscription benefits, albeit with ads. Even the subscription is relatively inexpensive - $3 a month if you buy a year subscription.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go enjoy the clean lyrics and heavy use of chordal patterning of Buck 65.
Posted by Joel at 1/13/2006 10:40:00 PM
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