Have you ever been asked what type of music you’re into and been unable to name any specific favourite artist or genre and just ended up mumbling something banal like “I like all kinds of music”?
This media player add-on will look at your music library and extrapolate a ranked list of your favourite artist and genres from your ratings and playcounts.
Not only this, but by examining your songs and cross referencing them with a decent song lyrics database and a song meanings database, the program will be able to draw up a series of conclusions to take you on a voyage of discovery about your musical tastes. Here are a few examples of what it might throw out (not a list): “Your interest in Bon Jovi peaked at the release of the Slippery When Wet album” “You rate Britney Spears songs very poorly but keep playing them anyway” “The most common noun in your music collection is ‘hat’” “Your favourite year for music was 1973” “You dislike songs about love but have mixed feelings about food related songs”-- hidden truths, Feb 12 2007 Someone else hates (brackets too) http://blogs.guardi...up_the_bracket.html[z_t] and [imaginality] ain't the first... [theleopard, Feb 14 2007] Songs About Hats http://www.google.c...&btnG=Google+Searchfor [theleopard] [hidden truths, Feb 14 2007] last.fm http://last.fm[hippo] I recommend this site to you, it doesn't look at lyrics, but it does vitrtually everything else you might want. [neilp, Feb 15 2007] I don't play CDs at home any more - I only play mp3 files streamed over my wireless home network to a SliMP3 player in the kitchen, so something like this would be nice to have. In fact, what I'd like is the Amazon "If you liked X, you might like Y..." but based on what I actualy play, not on what I own.-- hippo, Feb 12 2007 That already kind of exists on iTunes. No bun for you!-- quantum_flux, Feb 14 2007 "You can leave your hat on," is the only song I can think of that repeats the word 'hat'.-- theleopard, Feb 14 2007 Wherever I lay my hat (that's my home)
Don't you love that thing in pop titles where they put an extra bit for clarification in brackets - Why do they do that?-- zen_tom, Feb 14 2007 I Don't Know (Maybe They Love Brackets?)
Or maybe it's to tempt people to listen to the song who might otherwise be deterred: faced with a song title like 'Everything I Do' you'd assume, "Geez, a whole song just about what this guy does - talk about egocentric! I think I'll skip listening to that, thanks," whereas adding '(I Do It For You)' makes you think, "Ahhh... how romantic! I'd love to listen to this song."*)
* Note: Actual reactions may vary. In case of excessive soppiness, please consult your physician.-- imaginality, Feb 14 2007 Similarly, one might think that the song 'Satisfaction' could be about a well-to-do City Boy, having a lovely time, nothing really to write home about, just all kind of 'OK' and 'well'. It's not until you wack on the (I can't get no) after it that you get an insight into a troubled mind set, and a meloncholic quest for satisfaction that is continuously sabotaged by the whims of God-knows-what.
Read the [linky] too.-- theleopard, Feb 14 2007 Which bit exists on itunes [q_f]? And where? I've been using it for years and never noticed anything even vaguely similar to this.-- hidden truths, Feb 14 2007 [hidden_truths], thanks for the link. It seems to me that apart from Tom Jones, most hat related songs are American mid-west folk songs for slack jawed yokels and disgruntled hatless cowboys. "Yee-haw" and such.
May we assume that this genre is particularly prominent in your music collection?-- theleopard, Feb 14 2007 Heh. Close, but not quite. I was on a Sinatra binge when I chose that. The Sunny Side of the Street, They Can't Take That Away From Me, Misty etc.
Without wanting to quibble over votes, I'm not really seeing the objection to this idea, other than the claim (and I can't find anything to back it up on iTunes itself) that it's baked. I'll admit it has little real value (without utilising [hippo]'s suggestion), but it might still be interesting as a free download.-- hidden truths, Feb 14 2007 Sometimes brackets are used to make the singer appear more thoughtful and discriminating than they might otherwise seem, as in Meatloaf's "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)". The Human League used them randomly (as in "(Keep Feeling) Fascination") or as a sort of subtitle to explain a meaningless song title (e.g. "Love Action (I Believe In Love)").-- hippo, Feb 14 2007 I fear that if you own Snoop Dogg's "Doggystyle" album the most common word in your collection's lyrics will inevitably be, "fuck," or, "bitch," (phonetically - "bee-atch") regardless of how many songs you profess to have on your iPod, or indeed how many songs you can claim to have about hats.-- theleopard, Feb 14 2007 Twas but an example my dear [leopard]. Can't say I'm much of a Snoop fan anyway.-- hidden truths, Feb 15 2007 Isn't alot of this idea already covered by last.fm?-- Mad Dog, Feb 15 2007 Or, maybe I'm just more organized than you, but I created a smart playlist entitled "awesome". Then, every time I play an awesome song, I rank it 5 stars. I also have one entitled "Dubpunk SURFSKANKS" which has all the coolest chillinist party drinking music you've ever heard. The more organized you are, the better your party shuffle becomes.-- quantum_flux, Feb 15 2007 [q_f], I don't see how a favourite songs playlist has anything to do with this idea?
[Mad Dog] is quite right it seems. Some of this idea is covered by last.fm. I'd not heard of it before. It seems quite interesting.-- hidden truths, Feb 15 2007 Say you have a song titled "I hate you." It is played on the radio constantly, and has a catchy chorus that goes "You stole my bike, you wanker".
People will head out to the record store looking for a CD with your name on it and a song called "You stole my bike, you wanker".
This way you can title it with your original intent and still clarify for potential customers: Track 5. "I hate you (You stole my bike, you wanker)"-- GutPunchLullabies, Feb 15 2007 Sounds catchy...-- theleopard, Feb 15 2007 I'm drawing a line between what your computer does and what your own brain is capable of doing because somebody needs to take a stance! Are you expecting your computer to tell you what your favorite food is based on your eating patterns? No! Peporoni pizza is the best even though the computer would extrapolate that you like PBJ sandwiches the best because you eat them all the time. What will happen next is that the computer will automatically force you to eat a PBJ sandwich or listen to MXPX based on some kind of extrapolation when you're really in the mood for meatball subs and Ziggens. Letting the CPU pick and choose your favorites is the first step towards machines taking control of your mind, and if you got used to this kind of passive mindlessness, then you'd eventually allow a computer to control all of your brain's functions. In effect, you'd have a technological brain slug telling you what to do, where to go, and when to do it.-- quantum_flux, Feb 15 2007 worse still, it'd tell you where you would like to go, what you would like to do, and when you would like to do it.
Ref. Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur throwing the "tea" at the vending machine.-- TheLightsAreOnBut, Feb 15 2007 [q_f], you seem to be missing the lack of a point. This program would be entirely passive. It would just point out the patterns emerging from your use of your music library. It wouldn't have any control over what is played.
Your comparison is clearly flawed anyway. To compare with mp3 files on a computer, you'd have to imagine that you had completely equal access to mass supplies of both pepperoni pizza and PBJ sandwiches. In which case, if you ate the sandwiches most of the time, it would suggest that they are your favourite.-- hidden truths, Feb 16 2007 random, halfbakery