Music? - Total Spam.

[Frank Lion]

But scores (-5) for timing. Very good site... It's just that some of us *cough*myself*cough* have been using it for a couple of months now.

Thanks for keeping it to yourself. Your score -100.

Yes, this is awesome. Frank, you scored ...

Just for being Condo, you score -450. So, no change there.

<add ironic winking smilie here>

[Frank Lion]

Great find, Frank! My own personal radio stations. Cool!!

Yes, Uncle, bit better than the usual few but huge genres of 'Heavy Metal', 'Easy Listening' 'Punk', etc, etc... stuff that you normally get.

Whoever these guys are, they REALLY know their stuff, I put in a really obscure band (now long gone) not only did it find it, the other selections were spot on, without even rating them.

Interesting with the flash side, we seem to be getting more of it now in other sites and it's certainly easier than Real/WMP/QT, etc. YouTube are putting out in .flv (flash video) so I got good quick on that side - you can convert .flv to .avi without too much trouble. Going to be a Flash world soon, I reckon.

As for Pandora, I'll have a word with Greg, it shouldn't be very hard to do a userContent Style for that site - something like a full grad with just the player on it.

All good stuff.

[MeCasa]

It's got both good and bad points, they only play music they're hawkin', but that's only a problem if this is your only source of music. What it is is another weapon that I can utilize to increase my listening pleasure. I'd like it better if I could steal some, being the lowdown pirate that I am.

That said, I called it Tunes and put the link dead center on my link bar, if this keeps up broadband will become a necessity more than a luxury

[MeCasa]

Just for the record, I don't believe these people did 1/4 of the work they claim nor do I fall for that 'project' bullshit. They are partnered with Amazon and Amazon has had some of the best' if you like this you'll like this' lists for years. I wouldn't be surprised if some Amazon stockholders are Pandora stockholders

This is a mercenary site, thus Frank's 'Spam' disclosure

But then again, I don't have to be in love to have sex

[Uncle Spellbinder]

...But then again, I don't have to be in love to have sex

[daihard]

Nice find, Frank. Actually I used to use it for a while but totally forgot about the site lately... Good thing someone is always here to remind me.

I typed in Queen, and the site played some great tunes from the group called Styx. I got their CD.

[Frank Lion]

Now intercepting their feed through the sound card to do visualisations. Ever so slightly CPU heavy, but better than looking at yet another web page.


btw the spam bit meant me, not the site. Rome - Total War, etc

[MeCasa]

Now intercepting their feed through the sound card to do visualisations. :)

BTW: did you read the post I deleted, just for curiosity

[old FatJohn]

I guess that it's appropriate to mention http://www.last.fm/ in this thread. Dunno if it's any good. Never tried it, nor pandora. Some people like it though I hear... (great value, i know, just give me a +0.5...)

[MeCasa]

I typed in Queen, and the site played some great tunes from the group called Styx. I got their CD.

Not surprising, I did the math, you were a target customer

[Daifne]

I guess that it's appropriate to mention http://www.last.fm/ in this thread. Dunno if it's any good. Never tried it, nor pandora. Some people like it though I hear... (great value, i know, just give me a +0.5...)

I'm now trying it. Pandora couldn't match one of my favorite artists, but this one did immediately. Didn't like two separate downloads, but ran Ewido afterwards and found nothing.

[MeCasa]

Be careful that WinAmp doesn't come on when these players are streaming, twice I had to re-install audio drivers

However it could just be a quirk in the laptop I'm using

[hhh]

Here's another great link, check out their radio stations...
<em>"Rhapsody.com is for everyone who wants to listen to music, free. All you need is an Internet connection and a hankering for tunes. Search over two million songs, from the latest releases to your old favorites. It's easy to play — and it's free."</em>
http://www.rhapsody.com/

re:Pandora, I've been listening to Pandora for 6 months. They need to work on their song selections in a lot of categories. For example, if I create a station based on a song off of Grace Jones' recording <em>Nightclubbing</em>, which is essentially a reggae album (released on Island Records, produced by Chris Blackwell, with drum and bass tracks provided by Sly and Robbie), I should be listening to mostly other reggae tunes, but instead it feeds me mid-80's teen-pop vocalists like Madonna, Paula Abdul and Bananarama. The insult. Or try creating a station based on the band Pink Floyd and cringe at some of the stuff they'll play.

I emailed Pandora and they were kind enough to reply that they were working on it. Here is part of our correspondence...

You need to find some more criteria to link songs together in one station. For example, I enter Pink Floyd and then am given songs all in major keys. Ridiculous!!! Pink Floyd should link to Jefferson Airplane (psychedelic rock gods) but never to Starship (hideous soft-rock pop-star wannabes), even though one was an offshoot of the other. See the difference? Thanks for letting me vent.

Pink Floyd is a "favorite" of ours at the Music Genome Project. With over 120 songs in the analyzed database you'd think we could absolutely nail the Pink Floyd sound when you pick them to build a station.

Turns out that Pink Floyd have covered a fairly wide range of lyrical, and musical ground over 30 years. Pandora tries to cover the full range as it selects songs to play. Unfortunately, the resulting station is a bit off the mark for many Pink Floyd fan's tastes. We're working on a better way to cover artists like Pink Floyd.

Meanwhile here's a suggestion: Try making stations based on a number of individual songs that exemplify the sound you are looking for. For example try using "Have a Cigar", "Us and Them" and maybe "Comfortably Numb" as inputs.

You can add multiple songs to a station by clicking the triangle next to the station name and selecting "Add more music to this station".

I'll experiment with song titles. That's a good suggestion, especially, as you say, in the case of artists like Pink Floyd or the Beatles, where early songs like "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and later, heavily drug-influenced songs like "Flying" and "Blue Jay Way" sound like completely different groups, or the White Album where it changes style on almost every song.

[Frank Lion]

It's easy to play — and it's free."</em>
http://www.rhapsody.com/

...and it's US listen only. Saw that one ages ago, but I'm not going bother with proxy just for that.

[hhh]

It's easy to play — and it's free."</em>
http://www.rhapsody.com/

...and it's US listen only.

Crud.