Always on the cutting edge, I downloaded iTunes 8. What caught my eye was the new Genius feature.
The idea is that you pick a song, and iTunes will comb through your music library and build a playlist for you around that song. If you like X, you’ll like Y and Z and so on .
So, it’s a fake Last.FM just in iTunes instead.
I decided to throw it a fastball — no kids stuff to get it going. I picked something I got from the iTunes store, but something off of the beaten path. I picked Rebel Never Gets Old by David Bowie and Go Home Productions.
Why? Genius is going to use anonymous user data to figure out what the music relationships are. Basically, they are starting at zero on this when others, like last.fm, have years worth of data on this already archived.
So what did it come up with? It made a very weird list. “Genius” might be a bit strong of a word, though with time I am sure it’ll get better.
Revolution – Eric Clapton * Back Home
Black Math – The White Stripes * Elephant
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – Devo * Greatest Hits
The Walk – The Cure * Japanese Whispers
Personality Crisis – New York Dolls * New York Dolls
Two Hearts Beat As One – U2 * War
Straight To Hell – The Clash * Combat Rock
The Cutter (GHP remix) – Echo & The Bunnymen * GHP Complete – CD10 Unofficial Remixes Vol1
I’m Free – The Who * Tommy
Route 66 – Depeche Mode * Behind the Wheel/Route 66
Search And Destroy – The Stooges * Raw Power
You Really Got Me – The Kinks * Kinks (The Ultimate Collection)
Not All Me – Alanis Morissette * So-Called Chaos
Clampdown – The Clash * London Calling
Strange Brew – Cream * Strange Brew: The Very Best of Cream
Mellow Yellow – Donovan * Mellow Yellow
Blue Orchid – The White Stripes * Get Behind Me Satan
Myriad Harbour – The New Pornographers * Challengers
Is This It? – The Strokes * Is This It?
Sweet Jane – Lou Reed * The Best of Lou Reed
Tell Her Tonight – Franz Ferdinand * Franz Ferdinand
Do You Wanna Hold Me? – Bow Wow Wow * Totally 80′s
Happy Jack – The Who * 30 Years of Maximum R&B
I Will Dare – The Replacements * Let It Be
Depeche Mode, and then The Stooges? Uh, wow. Not what I would have picked, and back to back songs that don’t actually work.
Oh, the other feature is that iTunes will also recommend other music from the iTunes store, you know, just in case you think you need more stuff. Always with the business angle, Apple see this (I think) as a means to show you things you’d actually be interesting in buying. We’ll see if it works; I have a lot of music already, thank you, and I am no happy with Apple’s DRM or their “install 5 times only” policy for iTunes.
[UPDATE: I've been reading other write ups on the web, and this is the best one I've seen. Best, as in most descriptive, not nicest.]
