The "Music Genome" (apparently).

yeah tell that to the orchestra that couldn't play the Fall's "The Classical".

Its playlist for artists that were ostensibly similar to Nico included Judy Collins, Masha Qrella, Tracy Chapman, Lali Puna, and (?!) Missing Persons.

The self-generated Laurie Anderson playlist was marginally more accurate, as it spat up a brace of agreeably off-centre avant-pop obscurities, but the Stina Nordenstam playlist based its entire idea of Stina's output from The World Is Saved, so it chose a lot of typical Swedish alt.rock like the Cardigans.

The Boards of Canada playlist was perfectly acceptable, but that's because I don't have an opinion either way about 99% of artists that are supposedly similar to Boards of Canada.

And in the "glaring omissions" department, it didn't recognize Steve Reich, Philip Glass, or Terry Riley. It seems to bomb out entirely on things in the 20th-century chamber music department.

Not a bad little surprise jukebox if you consider it completely arbitrarily, but I found myself having to click "I Don't Like It" for a lot of otherwise good music because it made no sense for the artist in question.

Their descriptions under "why did we play this song" are accurate in a dry, unhelpful way... but whatever algorithm they're using is a pretty good example of how music can't be distilled down to its strictly formal properties. That is, why aren't they playing me more songs about the Muggletonians or whiskey?

Then, it eventually just played the Mekons.

It may prove me wrong, though -- "Victoria" by the Fall ("subtle use of vocal harmony"!) is a pretty good choice.

superchunk
eduardo bort
royal trux
the minutemen
silkworm
the ex
the minutemen
sham 69
girls against boys
bangs

I'm pretty pleased. It's also a little bit gratifying to be indirectly told that one of your favorite bands doesn't have that many sound-alikes.

jeff buckley
robert pollard
braid (twice)
pete yorn
31Knots (??)
new radiant storm king (??)
the flying nuns (who are kind of sweet)
shudder to think two more times

webbie (twice)
david banner (twice)
another jeezy track
daz dillinger
tony yayo (what?)
geto boys

i fuckin' love this shit. this is the new "set your music player of choice on random and report the first ten songs it plays." i am addicted.

And the playlist was:
Spoon "Sister Jack:
The Wedding Present "Jet Girl"
The Church "Chromium"
Michael Krassner "Glass in Garden"
Spoon "Carryout Kids"
Joggers "White Madam"
Portastatic "Through With People"
Jim Yoshii Pileup "Jailhouse Rock"
Spoon "Jonathan Fisk"
Graham Parker "There's Nothing On The Radio"

and the Music Genome Pandora thingy came up with:
The Fall "The N.W.R.A." (live)
New Order "Ceremony"
The Fall "Totally Wired" (live)
Eater "Lock It Up" (live)
Wreckless Eric "Semaphore Signals"
The Fall "Room to Live"
Guided By Voices "Not Behind The Fighter Jet"
The Makers "Please Kill Yourself"
Superchunk "Forged It"
The Fall "Slang King"

Anyhoo, if they could 1) continue to improve the songs picked 2) improve the ability to tap into other people's playlists (along the lines of Friendster/Myspace where you have an identity and whatnot) and 3) eventually figure out a way to broadcast over XM or Sirius, I think they'll be on to something.

"Unfortunately, our music licenses force us to limit the number of songs you may skip each hour. Sit back and enjoy the music for now..."

I really REALLY like this, though. I'm actually making a list of all the discoveries I'm making for Christmas.

And my Shudder to Think station just came up with "Long Distance Runner". I'm in love.

I can't decide if this sounds like a dream job or a nightmare.

Seriously though, it's a great gig. $17.50/hour. One I would have happily taken years ago when I was touring and living on ramen.

The playlist feedback is great. Always interested to hear 'seeds' that don't produce good results. Sometimes it's an artist with a broad range (does Nico qualify for that?). Have any of you tried starting with a particular song by the artist? That should focus the playlist more - you can also input multiple seed songs on one station.

Re. Chamber music - we don't have classical music at all yet. It's in the works, but still a ways off. IF one creeps in, it's by accident - and not surprised that it gives lousy results.

The descriptions are definitely a work in progress - I know they must seem repetivite and somewhat dry. We're working on it. Each song gets close to 400 attributes measured so there's lots of raw material- we're trying to think of elegant ways to surface more of this detail.

Re. licensing - you're correct about the licensing - we fall under the guidelines of the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) which governs webcasting.

Networking/community are definitely in the cards. Music is such a social thing, and we think pandora could be a great way of connecting folks with similar musical tastes.

Also - no deals about what gets played. We'll NEVER play a song because we got paid to do it. We also don't favor newer or more indie stuff, it just happens to comprise a large percentage of what we've analyzed. One of our principle missions is to help expose people to stuff they haven't heard.

Look forward to hearing more of your thoughts. Cheers. Tim

Well, it was weird. The first time I launched the Nico station, it started with a track off of The Marble Index, which is the album that really became the template for all of her work going forward. But the second time I launched, it started with a track from Chelsea Girl, which is her rather hippy-dippy, more traditionally folksy/acoustic first album - the sort of "odd man out" in her catalogue. But Pandora changed not only its entire description of Nico's music from square one, it also changed the direction of the subsequent playlist. Straneg how the randomizer's choice of specific discographical item can (apparently) so severely warp which "genre path" it chooses for the artist in question.

Anyway, if you're fixing for a solution to dear Nico, I'd definitely err on the side of goth/chamber music, as opposed to Judy Collins. Yuck.