Elliott Carter vs. iTunes 8 Genius
iTunes’s new Genius sidebar happily recommends Pink and other top songs and albums when it can’t find any matches for your current selection within iTunes, even when your current selection is A Symphony of Three Orchestras, a composition by Elliott Carter, a distinguished American composer still actively composing as he nears his 100th birthday—about as far away as you can possibly get from Pink. These wildly incongruous recommendations alone are reason enough to disable the Genius sidebar.
But hey, look! Carter’s Symphonia shows actual recommendations.
What’s that first one? Adams: The Dhar…, hmm, that’s probably John Adams, but whoa, he’s like in a separate universe from Elliott Carter. We’re not talking a Pink universe, but separate anyway.
What’s that next one? Berstein Conduc…, probably Leonard Bernstein, but could be Elmer too. And conducts what?
Heh, look at that last one, Requiem in D Minor, K…. If it wasn’t for that last K, I’d have little clue whose Requiem, but the K probably means Mozart.
Notice how in the Top Songs list, song title and artist name are generally quite short. Only three ellipses in the Top Songs section, in fact. Now notice how every one of the classical music recommendations has an ellipsized title and artist.
So close. Well, not too close at all really. The Genius might turn out to be great for commercial music, but for art music? Not a chance.
Hey Apple designers, why isn’t the Genius resizable?
I just had a similar experience. Genius appears to give up when faced with “songs” like “Allegro non troppo” or “Movement I”. It doesn’t appear smart enough to check the genre and look at the composer field when appropriate. I got no hits at all, so I disabled it.
But I like your taste in composers.
In the early days of any database like this, the long tail doesn’t get as much attention. As you contribute your data to the Genius database, and others with similar tastes do as well, your particular portion of the long tail (as well as everyone else’s) is going to increase in accuracy. Don’t give up, it’s only the first public week of Genius!
Trevor
Trevor Z, I won’t give up, but I’ve already disabled Genius until its next major revision. At any rate, its effectiveness for classical music is gravely limited, since the database will likely never include anything but current releases, ignoring the vast out-of-print catalog, even CD older than a few years.
“Genius is an Idiot”
How do I disable it once I’ve enabled it? I can’t find the settings…
DarthBob, choose Turn Off Genius in the Store menu.
Not only that, but it told me I was “missing” things that are in fact in my library.
And it doesn’t appear to know the difference between John Cage and John Cale. I mean really. Even a rudimentary CP/M word processor from the 1970s could do that.
Yes, “genius” sucks. But you have a bigger problem: You apparently listen to 20th century art music even when no one’s watching. That can’t be good. Maybe some Pink is just what you need. Genius.
Will–Pink? I prefer my music well-done.
Don’t know that I’d say it sucks, just doesn’t work for Classical music, at all. Look how long it took Pandora to start to figure out classical music.
Meanwhile, I’ve disabled it, and moved on to just listening to my music without regard to an alogorithm.