Can anyone wean me off of Sublime?

Russell,

I haven't listened much to Sublime, but this thread prompted me to check out the "genre" again. So, I went to Pandora and created a "station" for each of the following: Sublime, Blind Melon, Pepper and The Beautifuls Girls. Then I created a "quick mix" of those 4 artist/stations.

Pandora is a sort of Internet Radio, but you choose the artist, well sort of.... Pandora uses their "music genome project" to select artist that have similar musical styles. So, if you create a station for Sublime, Pandora will play music by Sublime and similar artist. If you create a "Quick mix" it will play songs by all of the artist in the mix, plus artist similar to the ones in the mix.

It's a pretty cool way to hear new music quickly. It does sometimes get kinda repeatative, so adding more artist to your quick mix will typically cut down on the repeatition.

Enjoy,

TIC

Reubent,

Thanks for the tip about Pandora. Great concept behind the website and excellent execution. I started with The Cramps and it served up The Clash, Dead Kennedy's, Sex Pistols, The Reverend Horton Heat, Violent Femmes, Tom Waits, Haskel Adkins, The Germs, Iggy Pop & The Stooges, The Meteors, Frank Black, etc.

I already know and dig all of these bands, but Pandora went one step further and served up individual songs from each artists closest to The Cramps psychobilly style. Interesting software behind that. I'm sure part is based on similar user choices, but there has to be some categorizing behind it.

On top of that, it correctly inserted bands that I'd never heard of into the station picks. Surprisingly, about were exactly what I was looking for within that genre. I am actually thinking of buying the cd's for 4-5 artists as a result which is pretty damn rare considering that I worked at a Record label for years and hate spending money on unknown acts.

This could be the future of music promotion. Great vehicle for unknown bands to get exposure.

O Dark One!,

Yep, Pandora is excellent at doing exactly what you described. I often create a "station" for an artist I see mentioned on one of the forums, and Pandora plays that artist, plus artist that play a similar type of music.

I don't know what mechanism Pandora uses, but it does categorize music by certain attributes. Here is the verbiage about the "Music Genome Project" from the Pandora site:

The Music Genome Project®

On January 6, 2000 a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever.

Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.

Since we started back in 2000, we've carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world.

It has been quite an adventure, you could say a little crazy - but now that we've created this extraordinary collection of music analysis, we think we can help be your guide as you explore your favorite parts of the music universe.

We hope you enjoy the journey.

Tim Westergren
Founder
The Music Genome Project

Enjoy,

TIC

Reubent: I just wanted to take the time to thank you for a wonderful tip (EG Pandora). Not sure if anyone can replicate Sublime but there were some interesting things that came up with the search. thanks again.

Russell,

You are most welcome. Spread the word! It's an interesting mucis site.....

TIC