Last.fm puts Galneryus on page 3, and Galneryus is sufficiently different that I wouldn't trust the recommendations that score lower. Last.fm correctly places Stratovarius above this cutoff, but Helloween, Sonata Arctica, and Blind Guardian don't make the cut, and Ayreon is all the way down on page 10 with Van Canto and Turisas. Van Canto and Turisas are great, to be sure, they are just way less similar to Dark Moor than Ayreon is.
Last.fm just reads tags, so a lot of artists have multiple names. モヒカンサンドバッグ is the second result for being similar to itself! Last.fm also does a pretty awful job by putting ORANGE★JAM and 3L on the first page, with dBu closely following. Much more similar producers and circles like 和泉幸奇, Alstroemeria, or IOSYS are nowhere to be found. Izmizm and Shibayan on page 1 are sensible. So maybe Last.fm isn't all that much better than nothing...
I think this can be good, and I might even pay for it, but ultimately it will be just one of a handful of half-solutions that need to be combined to get quality discovery. Pandora and Google Music's instant playlist do better than I would expect any people-who-like-x-also-like-y similarity system to do. Unfortunately Pandora has like 7 artists in its library and Google Music's instant playlist requires you to already have the music you are discovering, which sort of misses the point.
I think the major problem with services like this is that they have things at the far ends of the popularity bell curve fall off. Jcore being one of them. Kind of a chicken and the egg problem where people who like any of a number of niche generas come to the site, find it useless to them, and don't contribute. perhaps some incentive for adding new artists could break this cycle? or even just a link in the "Not Found" page tot he contribution suggesting if they like that band to leave their favorites for others.
Subscribing for Google Play Music All Access (yeah, say that seven times fast) opens up the instant playlists ("radio stations") to include all of the music in Google's catalog. But I have found the selection of similar music to be pretty conservative; despite Google's large catalog, the same artists/songs come up every time I play a given radio.
Comments
This does a really good job: http://ifyoudig.net/dark-moor
Last.fm does alright: http://www.last.fm/music/Dark+Moor/+similar
Last.fm puts Galneryus on page 3, and Galneryus is sufficiently different that I wouldn't trust the recommendations that score lower. Last.fm correctly places Stratovarius above this cutoff, but Helloween, Sonata Arctica, and Blind Guardian don't make the cut, and Ayreon is all the way down on page 10 with Van Canto and Turisas. Van Canto and Turisas are great, to be sure, they are just way less similar to Dark Moor than Ayreon is.
Of course, Last.fm is better than nothing: http://ifyoudig.net/mohican-sandbag vs. http://www.last.fm/music/Mohican+Sandbag/+similar
Last.fm just reads tags, so a lot of artists have multiple names. モヒカンサンドバッグ is the second result for being similar to itself! Last.fm also does a pretty awful job by putting ORANGE★JAM and 3L on the first page, with dBu closely following. Much more similar producers and circles like 和泉幸奇, Alstroemeria, or IOSYS are nowhere to be found. Izmizm and Shibayan on page 1 are sensible. So maybe Last.fm isn't all that much better than nothing...
I think this can be good, and I might even pay for it, but ultimately it will be just one of a handful of half-solutions that need to be combined to get quality discovery. Pandora and Google Music's instant playlist do better than I would expect any people-who-like-x-also-like-y similarity system to do. Unfortunately Pandora has like 7 artists in its library and Google Music's instant playlist requires you to already have the music you are discovering, which sort of misses the point.
I think the major problem with services like this is that they have things at the far ends of the popularity bell curve fall off. Jcore being one of them. Kind of a chicken and the egg problem where people who like any of a number of niche generas come to the site, find it useless to them, and don't contribute. perhaps some incentive for adding new artists could break this cycle? or even just a link in the "Not Found" page tot he contribution suggesting if they like that band to leave their favorites for others.
I wonder how much a 15 write-in ballot helps things D: http://i.imgur.com/uT0X1HU.png
Subscribing for Google Play Music All Access (yeah, say that seven times fast) opens up the instant playlists ("radio stations") to include all of the music in Google's catalog. But I have found the selection of similar music to be pretty conservative; despite Google's large catalog, the same artists/songs come up every time I play a given radio.