iTunes Genius

I finally got around to downloading the latest version of iTunes and with it came their new Genius playlist feature. Here’s how it works:

You pick a song in your library you like, hit the Genius button, and it generates a playlist from your library of 25 complimentary songs. I was skeptical, but tried it out. It first parses through your whole library and uploads that data to a central server somewhere (let’s call it Mother Brain) and cross references with thousands of other people’s libraries and musical tastes. So can Genius generate the awesomest mixtape ever from just one song? Will John Cusack and Jack Black use this feature as evidence of an impending apocalypse in High Fidelity 2?

Maybe. Here’s how it did when I selected Neighborhood #2 (Laika) by Arcade Fire…

1. Neighborhood #2 (Laika) by Arcade Fire
2. Five Years – David Bowie
3. Slow Hands – Interpol
4. Last Goodbye – Jeff Buckley
5. Lua – Bright Eyes
6. The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
7. El Scorcho – Weezer
8. We Are Nowhere and It’s Now – Bright Eyes
9. Grace – Jeff Buckley
10. Lover’s Spit – Broken Social Scene
11. Caring is Creepy – The Shins
12. Molly’s Chambers – Kings of Leon
13. 12:51 – The Strokes
14. Business Time – Flight of the Conchords
15. Lazy Eye – Silversun Pickups
16. I Summon You – Spoon
17. My Moon My Man – Feist
18. Vampire / Forest Fire – Arcade Fire
19. Fake Palindromes – Andrew Bird
20. Do You Realize? – The Flaming Lips
21. Evil – Interpol
22. Wolf Like Me – TV on the Radio
23. Y Control – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
24. Woman King – Iron & Wine
25. In the Backseat – Arcade Fire

Not bad, but a little heavy on Bright Eyes. Let’s try another song: Coffee & TV – Blur

1. Coffee & TV – Blur
2. Every You Every Me – Placebo
3. Alright – Supergrass
4. Supersonic – Oasis
5. The Charming Man – The Smiths
6. Summer Babe – Pavement
7. The Dark of the Matinee – Franz Ferdinand
8. Lucky – Radiohead
9. Monkey Gone to Heaven – Pixies
10. Slow Hands – Interpol
11. The New Pollution – Beck
12. Here Comes Your Man – Pixes
13. El Scorcho – Weezer
14. She’s So High (Live) – Blur
15. The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
16. Out of Time – Blur
17. The W.A.N.D (The Will Always Negates Defeat) – The Flaming Lips
18. No Cars Go – Arcade Fire
19. Mistaken for Stranges – The National
20. For Tomorrow – Blur
21. You and Me Song – The Wannadies
22. Tropicalia – Beck
23. We Used to Vacation – Cold War Kids
24. One Big Holiday – My Morning Jacket
25. Molly’s Chambers – Kings of Leon.

The way I’ve been using it is to create the playlist and not look at what was selected, preferring to treat it like a robot radio station while I listen to it on my commute. What’s cool about it is that it will dig down and find stuff that you probably forgot about and never got a chance to rate (if you rate your songs at all).