Platinum vinyl record for Pandora s 10 billionth thumb in 2016 (Photo by Christoph Dernbach via Getty Images)
Before Pandora’s personalized internet radio service launched in 2005, there was Savage Beast Technologies. From 2000 to 2004, the company focused on building out its music-recommendation technology, the Music Genome Project. Pioneered by founder Tim Westergren, the Music Genome Project had humans, in the form of skilled musicians, listening to songs to uncover and annotate their musical attributes.
Remarkably, music analysts are still listening to songs today. Many aspects of how streaming music platforms provide song recommendations has shifted to computers and machine learning, but not all. There are still analysts doing the same work they have for the last 20 years. We talked to several analysts, past and present, to get a sense of how they work today, 20 years after the Music Genome Project’s inception.
This Week’s Livestreams (Foo Fighters, Courtney Barnett, Yo La Tengo, Rick Ross, more)
LAST UPDATED: 12/18 at 6:54 PM ET
HERE ARE THIS WEEK S LIVESTREAMS (Sunday, 12/13 - Saturday, 12/19):
Saturday, December 19
4 AM ET, 3 PM ET, and
11 PM ET on Momenthouse. Tickets are on sale now.
BadPond Live Stream Festivals streams on YouTube at
9:30 AM ET, featuring
A.A. Williams, Jamie Lenman, Saint Agnes and more.
All Them Witches stream two virtual concerts at
2 PM ET and
Riz Ahmed is streaming a virtual performance of
The Long Goodbye at
Enslaved are streaming all three parts of the Cinematic Summer Tour at
3 PM ET on