My Million-dollar idea

[bluegargantua]

"Serendipity Shuffle"

Your MP3 player has a shuffle mode. But serendipity shuffle goes one step further. It analyzes the song that you're currently playing and then makes a shortlist of songs related to the song you're listening to now -- mostly by looking for matches in the lyrics, although other linking criteria might be used. Then it randomly selects from the shortlist.

Your music is still "random", but you'll notice a weird, slowly-evolving theme running through all the songs.

later
Tom

Comments

[dirkcjelli.livejournal.com]

doesn't that have a complexity requirement on the order of natural language processing?

[bluegargantua]

Well, it could be alleviated if you put tags on your songs (or if there was a central database that tagged songs). You're mostly looking for frequency matches. Or you might have a "same but different" flag that looks for songs with words in common, but also words in opposite in common. So a sad love song is followed by a happy love song.

It's not going to be DJ-perfect where one song immediately riffs into the next, but it would seriously up the odds.

later
Tom

[mikecap.livejournal.com]

Or you could use an algorithm like Pandora does for "music genes" and tie that in to lyrics processing. I think what you need in particular is a "music XML" standard for musical metadata, that would help immensely.

[sarahluna.livejournal.com]

Have you ever tried Pandora?

[bluegargantua]

Yeah, but that just does genre's of songs.

later
Tom

[mikecap.livejournal.com]

I believe they actually analyze wavelengths and frequencies and stuff too - they always seem to give me matches that have similar tones.

[da-popa.livejournal.com]

I really like the idea. You may want to try a Premium subscription to MP3Tunes (http://www.mp3tunes.com/), as they have a feature similar to what you describe: Smart PlayMix (http://www.mp3tunes.com/locker/cb/smartplaymix). I'm not sure if it does lyrics, but it does use AMG (http://www.allmusic.com/)'s database to "Create a PlayMix based on the song you're listening to."