Originally published at: On Songs Like X, you can find new music that sounds similar to your favorite songs | Boing Boing
…
1 Like
If I type in anything by Joni Mitchell it only shows me covers and whatnot, none of her originals. Does this website just not have stuff? It also fails completely in opera and operetta where an opera chorus classic gives you suggestions of modern musical theatre belting songs. It’s like asking for Joan Baez and getting Ariana Grande.
Spotify gets me about 20% of the time, completely loses me 30% of the time, and the remainder is a narrow window of music Spotify is intent on ruining for me with overplays.
And now I’m suddenly apprehensive to have another algorithm bot judging me and failing. Facebook sends me alpha male gun advertisements in between ads for swimsuits designed for nursing, Google sends me advertisements for the random dumb thing I already bought, and my news feed is partially comprised of “news stories” that I’m convinced were puked together by a news bot designed to get me to click on more ads that don’t get me. For as much data as they have on me it’s like they don’t even know me. Maybe some day the right bot will find me, maybe it’s this one.
3 Likes
This thing blows hard on EDM. It’s like they have never heard of Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music, geez.
I’ve never understood why programs like this don’t start with a beat structure and build up from there.
1 Like
I found Apple music recommendations to be excellent. Aside from the odd week when there will be absolutely nothing that I like, and nothing that sounds anything like what I might like.
Using a site like this seems a little too…effortful? I much prefer to just have my music player pay attention to what I’m listening to and recommend things, rather than having to go search out similarities to other artists (Which if I wanted to I could also easily do through Apple music)
Just searching by song is ridiculous. I tried some synthpop and industrial songs and it only was able to find one. Then I checked the recommendations and they were just ok. Plus, I’ve listened to every single one of the recommendations, so it didn’t find me anything new. I guess this isn’t really for obscure genres or music nerds.
2 Likes
To be fair, Ariana Grande has chops.
Seems like this is exactly what Pandora and other music services do, and apparently about as well? Maybe I’m just trying to match bands that just don’t have anyone that sounds similar, so they all don’t work terribly well? Or perhaps there’s some ideal genres that work best with these sorts of things…
2 Likes
I get suggestions which is surprising considering my tastes but they’re only useless excerpts.
… just like Pandora, except 18 years later 
3 Likes
Not for me. Last thing I want to listen to is “similar” music.
Mix it up a little, huh?
4 Likes
The best curation and recommendations service was out in the Pirate reaches on What.cd. You had a tag cloud that fellow music nerds could add similar things to that would lead you off down rabbit holes of amazing music.
Algorithms are garbage.
4 Likes
I’ve always used Boil the Frog and it usually gives decent results. Also Music-Map is pretty cool too.
1 Like
For my sake, Last.FM used to deliver solid recommendations. But that was years ago.
1 Like
Oh yes, I loved Last.fm. I had it track all of my listening and it gave me great recommendations. It also had really great stats visualizations.
Probably because not all music starts with a beat structure and goes from there.
Oh, this is fun. I threw quite a few artists at it that it didn’t have, but I tried one odd path (MC Lars to The Waitresses) and immediately found an album collaboration that I didn’t know I needed! (MC Lars with K.Flay? Oh yes!)
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
