Genius (but no love) - post the suggestions you are getting from itunes 8 genius here

Though I tend to only have a hundred or CDs on the laptop at any one time, surely Genius should be making better suggestions?

For instance, I've got the Bowies Heroes and Low albums on, what suggestion do I get when playing 'sense of doubt' I have a load of Cluster, Neu and Harmonia on the list too, so some German electronic stuff would be a no brainer - at least suggest some Eno. Except the Genius is suggesting "under pressure" by Queen and Bowie.

At the other end of the scale, I try a much lesser known artist, Australian post-rockers 'Laura'. I picked up on them when emusic suggested they were a band 'people who like Grails would like' (which was right, I do). I don't have any of the more obvious peer bands on, no Mogwai, Tortoise, Godspeed, EITS etc Instead I get various girl singers who have a first name of Laura.. wtf?

Is it just a random keyword match or is it supposed to be learning.

Anyone else having better luck?

It performed well enough for me when I tried it last night. I played "The Yeti" by High on Fire and it created a playlist with Mastodon, Baroness, Katharsis, Converge, Dillinger Escape Plan, Om, and I forget the rest. Sure, it's not perfect, but it should improve with time as it collects more data from users.

Every time they tell me iTunes has an update I wonder whether I'm making a huge mistake by downloading it. I declined this time.

Non-Genius-related question: has anyone figured out how to force iTunes to launch maximized? Ever since I updated it always launches in a tiny window.

genie-arse morelike.

Is this iTunes version of Last.fm or something, but without the radio element?

Pretty much. Actually I don't know how it works - "it should improve with time as it collects more data from users" but what data is it collecting and how?

I tried Genius three times last night.

Seed 1: kevin ayers - hymn
kinks - waterloo sunset
blondie - heart of glass
fleet foxes - white water hymnal
modern lovers - roadrunner
arcade fire - rebellion (lies)
charlotte gainsbourg - 5:55
laurie anderson - o superman
kate bush - king of the mountain
bob dylan - visions of johanna
mott the hoople - all the young dudes
the feeling - sewn
rolling stones - honky tonk women
goldfrapp - ooh la la
kevin ayers - interview
artic monkeys - i bet you look good on the dancefloor
take that - patience
magazine - definitive gaze
david bowie - speed of life
lindisfarne - lady eleanor
love - alone again or
kevin ayers ft syd barrett - religious experience (singing a song in the morning)
new order - krafty
breeders - cannonball
mgmt - time to pretend

Seed 2: hercules & love affair - blind
trentemoller ft ane trolle - moan
royksopp - what else is there?
justice - DVNO
glass candy - beatific
vitalic - poney part 1
ladytron - seventeen
the presets - are you the one?
glass candy - etheric device
crystal castles - crimewave
daft punk - robot rock (soulwax remix)
basement jaxx - take me back to your house
m.i.a. - jimmy
burial - archangel
chemical brothers - burst generator
hercules & love affair - you belong
dangerous muse - the rejection
air - cherry blossom girl
sebastien tellier - sexual sportswear
wiley - wearing my rolex
portishead - machine gun
benga - night
hercules & love affair - theme
the knife - silent shout (williams acidic circuits remix)
cut copy - hearts on fire

Seed 3: blondie - sunday girl
cockney rebel - make me smile
david bowie - ashes to ashes
kim wilde - kids in america
kate bush - wuthering heights
blondie - maria
yazoo - only you
lou reed - perfect day
clash - white riot
pet shop boys - always on my mind
abba - honey honey (swedish version)
kinks - waterloo sunset
blondie - hanging on the telephone
david bowie - the jean genie
style council - you're the best thing
stone roses - i wanna be adored
joy division - she's lost control
squeeze - cool for cats
the pretenders - 2000 miles
blondie - heart of glass
erasure - stop!
supergrass - alright
wham! - freedom
talking heads - road to nowhere
roxy music - dance away

Playlist 2 is kinda alright actually

i wrote this off without looking as a cynical marketing tool. i might go back and look at it properly. i like the idea in principle.

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - I See A Darkness
Grim Reaper Blues - Entrance
Baby I'm Just A Fool - Spiritualized
Here - Pavement
Pyramid Song - Radiohead
Wait For The Summer - Yeasayer
Young Bride - Midlake
Ain't You Wealthy? Ain't You Wise? - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
Believe ESP - Deerhoof
Now. Now. - St. Voncent
True Love Waits - Radiohead
Kim & Jessie - M83
Come In Alone - My Bloody Valentine
Raining In Darling - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
Black Mirror - Arcade Fire
Druganaut - Black Mountain
Kyoto Song - The Cure
The Mercy Seat - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Slow Show - The National
The Unguarded Moment - The Church
I'll Keep It With Mine - Bob Dylan
Fools - The Dodos
Either Way - Wilco
Atoms For Peace - Thom Yorke
Another Day Full Of Dread - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

Summer Breeze - The Isley Brothers
Move On Up - Curtis Mayfield
Theme From Shaft - Isaac Hayes
Sign 'O' The Times - Prince
Mothership Connection - Parliament
Stoned Love - The Supremes
No Scrubs - TLC
Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer - Stevie Wonder
Night Train - James Brown
Say My Name - Destiny's Child
Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On - Funkadelic
The Healer - Erykah Badu
Funky Man - Kool & The Gang
Let's Get It On - Marvin Gaye
Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
Green Onions - Booker T. & The MG's
In The Rain - The Dramatics
Happy Feelin' - Earth, Wind & Fire
Family Affair - Sly & The Family Stone
Walk On By - Isaac Hayes
Inside My Love - Minnie Riperton
Pull Up To The Bumper (12" Mix) - Grace Jones
Brown Eyed Girl - The Isley Brothers
Give Up The Funk - Parliament
Machine Gun - The Commodores

My playlist #2 ("Blind") is enjoyable, flows well, and digs up a few things I'd forgotten about.

Playlist #3 ("Sunday Girl") basically does the job: I gave it a big hit, and it came back with a bunch of other big hits which broadly fit the sane aesthetic.

Playlist #1 ("Hymn") is where the robot came unstuck, and if I'm being generous then I'll acknowledge that the central software is still building its data and forming connections. But it's also very easy to un-check the shonky selections and hit the Refresh button for a better list.

It may disappear with time as the software "learns", but on the whole I do quite like the relative stylistic broadness, compared to Pandora's algorithms which could produce samey, overly homogenised playlists.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/itunes_8_the_genius_in_the_box.php

You're So Gangsta (Playgroup R 4:06 Chromeo
I Believe 3:19 Simian Mobile Disco
Greatest Hit 3:40
Here In The Night 4:18 Kelley Polar
Boney m down 3:49 Lindstrom & Prins Thomas
Silent Shout 4:48 The Knife
Boys Wanna Be Her 3:54 Peaches
Something About Us 1:55 Daft Punk
Moving Like A Train 5:53 Herbert
Teach me how to Fight 5:32 Junior Boys
Rhythm 4:42 Awol One
make love 4:48 daft punk
Fresh Is The Word 5:31 Mantronix
ORANGE ALERT 5:49 METRO AREA
Precious Metals 2:21 The Russian Futurists
Tits & Acid 4:04 Simian Mobile Disco
Arrest Yourself 2:30 Hot Chip
want 2 need 2 (trentemoeller remix) 6:00 Sharon Phillips
Black Hole 4:50 Kelley Polar
Leave Me Alone 3:17 Ellen Allien
Tent In Your Pants 2:50 Peaches
By The Time I Get To Venus 5:12 The Juan MacLean
Playgirl (Felix Da Housecat Glitx Clubhead mix) 5:15 Ladytron Lektroluv (
I Feel Space (M.A.N.D.Y. Remix) 7:32 Lindstrom
Hot In Herre 3:50 Tiga

Propaganda- P-Machinery
Yello- Vicious Games
George Kranz- Din Daa Daa
Cerrone- Supernature
Fad Gadget- Lady Shave
Massive Attack- Live With Me (radio edit)
Tracey Thorn- Raise the Roof
Heaven 17- Geisha Boys and Temple Girls
Simian Mobile Disco- I Believe (SMD Space Dub)
Sebastien Tellier- Divine
Kavinsky- Wayfarer
Booka Shade- Night Falls
Lindstrom & Prins Thomas- Boney M Down
Air- Kelly Watch the Stars
Propaganda- Dr Mabuse
Vitalic- My Friend Dario
Colder- To the Music
Jean-Michel Jarre- Oxygene Part II
Kraftwerk- Tour de France
Goldfrapp- Tiptoe
Section 25- Looking from a Hilltop
Royksopp- Eple
Lindstrom- I Feel Space
The Orb- Little Fluffy Clouds
Grauzone- Eisbar

not too bad

It seems to either come up with the blindingly obvious or say 'Genius is unavailable for the song 'x', please choose something where it can come up with a list of he blindingly obvious.'

The Genius could not find anything suitable to follow Tangerine Dream's "Zeit"

I feel it works the same - in the programmer's mind, blindlingly obvious is good. I think that's where Pandora comes in as well - very good at it's job. The more computerized a playlist-making function you have, the more it'll be that way. I think they're catering to the average college iPod kid - he plays some Iron and Wine and he'll love getting some Shins and M Ward and acoustic Will Oldham and some Nick Drake. Some girl plays some pop and she'll get a bunch of Kylie Minogue and shit. Metal? Easy - pick mostly anything. I doubt it'll delve into the metal micro scenes. It'll never be a DJ, but just a thing to make a quick playlist at work. That's why DJs get a crowd to yell when they mix an awesome old rap song after a disco song that suprisingly has a great sample leading right into it - the "no one would ever think of that, this is awesome" factor. Lame example, but it is something a computer won't do. Most of what my Genius thing does is sum up a scene sound, I feel. "Pop that sounds kinda techno." "Electro." "Southern Rock." "70s r&b." "ambient sounding stuff." "Garden State shit." like that.

Oh, this is fun. I just had it do the Birthday Party's "Release the Bats." I have loads of Cramps and psychobilly stuff that you'd think would be the obvious, easy match. None of it showed up. Some highlights:

Scritti Politti, "The 'Sweetest Girl'"
Orange Juice, "Falling and Laughing"
Cocteau Twins, "My Love Paramour"

There were a few decent entries (Bauhaus's "Kick in the Eye," Christian Death, the Stooges) but by and large drawing from either the more frilly, 4AD froo-froo end of post-punk or synthpop (lots of Pet Shop Boys, Heaven 17, Soft Cell, etc).

Telephone Thing - Its telling you that you need to chill out some!

I loaded a whole load more albums into it and its getting slightly better than it was for playlists (still not much better than randon though and I've never seen the spooky thing that shuffle seems to do by connecting two songs I had considered unrelated).

But the you are missing / things you should buy suggestions are clueless and hopeless. It keeps suggesting mispellings of things I already have as well which is weird. That might be because I've been on one of my regular Can binges and I think the itunes store Can listing is mangled.

I've been enjoying some good reggae lists, but I wonder if that's mainly because I rarely listen to a full reggae album anyway compared to most other genres.

Genius is surprisingly graphically dull for a Mac product.

I've got to wonder how exactly Genius works- how much information it's storing on my PC, what exactly it collects from other machines, etc. Because I just had it whip up a list based on Michel Polnareff's "Voyages" and it came up with a list of 25 French people in a row. I know I do not have special tags on all of these saying "FRENCHMAN" and I'm pretty sure most other people don't as well. Some of them are obvious (Gainsbourg, Sebastien Tellier, Anna Karina from the "Anna" soundtrack, Lio), some make no sense other than the French Connection (Yelle, TTC for god's sake) and one I'm wondering how it tracked down (Etienne Daho's cover of "Arnold Layne" from the Nouvelle Vague covers comp).

I never listen to music on my laptop, just use it as a conduit to load music from my external hard drive to my new 120gig iPod that I got on Monday.

I have no idea how Genius works on the iPod - does it store info on it? Update it from my library when I plug it in? I usually walk around and take the bus with it on shuffle, and I've turned Genius on when something that I like comes on, and it makes a playlist of vaguely similar sounding stuff though it definitely picks too many things from the same artist or even the same album. I've got 17,000 somethings tracks on there, it seems like it could do a lot better than picking a couple of songs from the same album. But its less jarring (also less exciting?) than just running everything on shuffle.

This is actually kind of amazing.

this actually kind of sucks

like who knew that santogold hercules and love affair and lcd sound system fans are all the same people ¯\(°_o)/¯

id be curious to know who they sound like that arent on adjoining bullshit mp3 blog posts

except not those musics those were just examples - although i do like them except not lcd sound system

and it thinks lets all chant by michael zager band sounds like that springsteen song abt tom hanks aids

http://i35.tinypic.com/2ly6beg.jpg

i genuis'd the same song three times and got three different playlists but similar (e.g. same songs/artists, different order/different song by same artist)

matched australian indie with more australian indie (i have plenty non-australian to choose from)

Radiohead - Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
Air - Sexy Boy
Daft Punk - Digital Love
Basement Jaxx - Where's Your Head At
Presets - This Boy's in Love
Jamiroquai - Cosmic Girl
Cold Storage - Canada
Air - Once Upon a Time
Natacha Atlas - Amulet (TJ Rehmi Remix)
Aphex Twin - Xtal
Art of Noise - Something Always Happens (Drum & Bass remix)
Broadcast - Hammer Without a Master
Basement Jaxx - Red Alert
Jamiroquai - You Give Me Something
Bjork - Earth Intruders
Daft Punk - Aerodynamic
Air - Cherry Blossom Girl
Presets - Girl and the Sea
Natacha Atlas - Leysh Nat'arak
Art of Noise - Yebo (Interlude 1 - Mark Gamble)
Basement Jaxx - Take Me Back to Your House
Jamiroquai - All Right
Aphex Twin - Schottkey 7th Path
TISM - Everyone Else has Had More Sex than Me
Air - All I Need

Brilliant, brilliant playlist, if you ignore all the repetition and the incongruous TISM song.

(also it's off the iphone and therefore ~10% of my music)

so close, itunes, so close

Tribal Gathering Byrds
Pretty Boy Floyd The Byrds
Strength Of Strings Gene Clark
The Daily Planet Love
Everybody's Wrong Buffalo Springfield
The Great Valerio Richard & Linda Thompson
Tamalpais High (At About 3) David Crosby
Million Dollar Bash Bob Dylan & The Band
Out In The Streets The Shangri-Las
If I Could Have Her Tonight Neil Young
Star Power Sonic Youth
Time Will Break the World Silver Jews
Games Graham Nash / David Crosby
Christine's Tune The Flying Burrito Brothers
Night Comes In (Live) Richard & Linda Thompson
Natural Harmony Byrds
Velvet Underground Jonathan Richman
Life In Prison The Byrds
Silver Raven Gene Clark
The God Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This Love
All La Glory (Early Version) The Band
Pay The Price Buffalo Springfield
Song With No Words (Tree With No Leaves) David Crosby
I've Loved Her So Long Neil Young
The Wall Song Graham Nash / David Crosby

At the moment, the only one of these things that seems to produce anything worthwhile for me is the lastfm radio station. I may be wrong, but I think part of this is the failure of most algorithms to account for the fact that bands that sound nothing alike should be linked. Genius either doesn't recognize or gets hopelessly wrong everything I feed into it.

Meanwhile, lastfm created a very nice Peter Gordon radio station just the other day!

i think genius works pretty well for me, generally

it's nice when you don't really trust shuffle to give you results

Fun with Genius: try to get from indie to hip-hop or vice-versa. Except it gets less fun when you realize it's impossible.

Artists that, IMO, should have bridged the gap but didn't:

M.I.A.
Gnarls Barkley
Gorillaz
Beastie Boys
ESG
Kanye
Prince

shit, I got to Bjork + Tribe from indie, I was sure that would do it ... but no.

I always assumed there was some crazy collaborative filtering math behind this that recognizes that I love both peanut butter AND jelly, but maybe it just figures out these overlapping genres and sticks every artist in one or another of them.

How is Genius performing for you these days? Supposedly it was going to gather data from all iTunes users to improve its recommendations. Have you seen anything to make you think that's true or false?