Google Music Is Awful at Recommending Songs

from Minyanville:




Google Music Is Awful at Recommending Songs
By Mike Schuster May 16, 2011


If an early test of Google Music's Instant Mix is any indication, Mountain View needs to go more "Thorough" and less "Instant." Of the new features incorporated into Google's streaming Music service, one of the more anticipated aspects is its Instant Mix -- a quick-and-dirty playlist of similar songs in your music library, just like iTunes' Genius mix. A user selects a song and Google Music assembles tracks purported to be of a like-minded genre.

.....(snip).....

After five rounds, Echo Nest earned a perfect score. At no point did the platform suggest a song that was out of the realm of similar style.

iTunes Genius also scored extremely well with only two tracks that skewed recommendations -- and that was only in one round. Choosing the core track "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga, iTunes Genius suggested Iron & Wine's codeine-infused "Flightless Bird, American Mouth" and the remember-how-much-you-hate-Dave-Matthews song "Flake" by Jack Johnson. While the two songs bear little relation to the over-the-top Gaga, Lamere posits, "I suspect this strange connection is due to the Twilight soundtracks that may appeal to the Lady Gaga demographic. Since iTunes relates artists based on sales, those that bought Lady Gaga and the Twilight albums would establish a connection between these two somewhat disparate types of music."

But Google Music couldn't use the Twilight soundtrack as an excuse. In five rounds of 24 suggest tracks each, Instant Mix spat back 62 WTF tracks. According to the beta service, there's no difference between Lady Gaga and Nick Cave, Miles Davis sounds just like Faith Hill, and "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" is indistinguishable from Kraftwerk. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.minyanville.com/dailyfeed/2011/05/16/google-music-is-awful-at/

And of course "California Uber Alles"

Edited for my home state!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW8UlY8eXCk

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