“I was out taking a walk this afternoon. I had my iPhone, and my headphones, and I was listening to music. When I do this, I listen to music in different ways, depending on my mood. Sometimes I pick an album and listen to it in order. Sometimes I shuffle all my songs,” Kirk McElhearn writes for Kirkville. “And sometimes, like today, I shuffle songs until I find one I like, then I create a Genius playlist from it and listen to that.”
“Apple’s Genius examines the music in your iTunes library and compares it with the libraries of others to create playlists of ‘songs that sound great together,'” McElhearn writes. “Essentially, Genius looks to see what you have in common with other music listeners, and crunches numbers to find the songs that will work in a playlist based on what different people have in common.”
McElhearn writes, “If Apple can leverage this technology in it music streaming service, they may have the most personal of all streaming services, giving them a big edge in the market.”
Read more in the full article here.
This is new to this guy?
I know. Rumplestiltskin wakes up.
Welcome to 1925.
Apple new streaming initative with beats puts emphasis on human curation not so much on algorithms … From what i understand !
There are probably three people in the world whose taste in music matches mine. I’m beyond weird.
You know there is nothing truly wrong with sharing your musical taste with Kim Jong Un
Genius was the first thing I turned off.
I’ve been impressed by Genius’ ability to generate an enjoyable playlist. But, as others have said, this idea is not new. But I do hope Apple leverages it to the fullest.
Genius might be useful if Apple tagged its songs properly, but it doesn’t. Until Apple can get the original song release date correct, the genre accurate and meaningful, the tempo (BPM) filled in, and the composer correct, there is no way that electronic curation will ever be better than mediocre.
But that certainly doesn’t mean that Beats, Spotify, Pandora, and the rest are any good either. Their idea of curation is just as pathetic. You invariably end up hearing the same few songs over and over, just like most pathetic mainstream broadcast radio.
If you want to listen to new, interesting, and inspiring music, you really need to put in some personal effort into your collection and manage your own playlists.
If, like the mainstream idiots of the world, you just need noise and are willing to consumer whatever crap the big music labels are pushing this year, then streaming audio is for you.
Here’s a factoid for you:
True fans of Stevie Ray Vaughan realize that a break came his way after playing at he Montreaux Jazz Festival. David Bowie was in the audience and was blown away by Stevie’s ability. So for the next album, Bowie hired SRV to play guitar in the studio.
But the casual observer, almost all DJs, and absolutely no mainstream music service would have enough brains to play an SRV blues tune adjacent to David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”, even though it’s that same genius guitarist.
If you love music, you need to learn and listen, instead of letting Apple or some other salesman push their monthly service onto you.
Genius is garbage. Spotify, beats et. al. used to be called radio. Oh wait. It still exists. It’s free.