Perfect Examples

[jennythereader]

So what songs do you guys point to and say "This song is a perfect example of what I mean when I say (whatever musical genre)?"

My examples are:
"Turn, Turn, Turn" by The Byrds; Folk-Rock
"Pastures of Plenty" and "This Land is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie; Folk
"They Can't Take That Away From Me" by Ella Fitzgerald; Jazz
"Sing, Sing, Sing" by Benny Goodman; Jazz
"Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix; Psychedelic Rock
"Twist and Shout" by The Beatles; Rock

There are others of course, but these are the ones that are at the top of my head at the moment.

Comments

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[nounsandverbs]

But on the plus side, the stuff they recommend by artists I've never heard of, tends to be stuff I like.

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

They're also pretty good at finding one song I like by artists that I otherwise can't stand.

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[nounsandverbs]

Fortunately 80% of the stuff I listen to tends to be easy to match. Like, I made a "Brit-pop" station and suggested XTC and Elvis Costello -- so it wasn't a stretch for Pandora to come up with The Police. (I'd forgotten about them.)

But I also made a "silly" station, suggesting Weird Al, Tom Lehrer, and They Might Be Giants. It seemed to have trouble with that one. It suggested a Styx song. I had to give that one a thumbs-down.

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that it's a lot better at finding stuff that has similar vocals or instrumentation than stuff that has similar lyrics or subject matter. That's probably why it didn't do so well with your silly station. Musically those three have almost no common ground for Pandora to work with.

I've often wished that there was a way to tell it "I like the sound of this song, but I'm giving it a thumbs down because the words offend me."

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[nounsandverbs]

I can see how a lot of ballad-sounding songs might run into that problem.

Of course, having given a thumbs-down to Styx, I'm that much less likely to hear REO Speedwagon. So I'd call that a win.