Levi (KUMM‘s music director) pointed me at musicmobs.com, and it looks like it could be pretty cool.
There are two main ways to use it. First, you can just go to their web site, enter three bands, and get a list of other bands that you might be interested in. Their recommendations are broad and interesting, which makes that useful in its own right.
The real win, though, is when you actually upload the list of songs in your iTunes library. This adds to the depth and breadth of their recommendations, and allows their system give you recommendations based on what you have and what you like. You can also search for other people that have “similiar” playlists as a way of discovering new stuff. (I tried uploading my iTunes library list yesterday, but nothing’s shown up yet. They say it can take up to 24 hours, though, so I’ll need to be patient.)
I’m currently listening to the excellent “Evolution” by Fred Frith from the recent re-release of Cheap at half the price. Their optional but cool Mobster program (with the Hipster/Mainstream slide down towards Hipster at 27%) is then recommending lots of cool stuff. Some of it is arguably expected (John Zorn, Can, Laurie Anderson), but others are just cool (Mingus and Monk, Ralph Stanley and Buena Vista Social Club). And I haven’t a clue who Yann Tiersen and Eyvind Kang are, so I guess I’ll have to check them out.
It’ll be interesting to see whether this catches on or fades away. They certainly seem to be struggling with some scaling issues at the moment (as do so many things like this), but it seems worth a spin.
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