Comments on: Elliott Carter vs. iTunes 8 Genius

By: Anthony Prickett

Anthony Prickett — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 17:28:13 +0000

Hey, I like Elliott Carter AND John Adams. Boulez might beg to differ, but I like them BOTH.

By: Arthur Kaye

Arthur Kaye — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:27:27 +0000

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.

By: John Blackburn

John Blackburn — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:03:57 +0000

Will–Pink? I prefer my music well-done.

By: Will

Will — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:56:26 +0000

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.

By: clabber grrl

clabber grrl — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:26:27 +0000

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.

By: John Blackburn

John Blackburn — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:41:11 +0000

DarthBob, choose Turn Off Genius in the Store menu.

By: DarthBob

DarthBob — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:47:43 +0000

“Genius is an Idiot”

How do I disable it once I’ve enabled it? I can’t find the settings…

By: John Blackburn

John Blackburn — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:56:32 +0000

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.

By: Trevor Z.

Trevor Z. — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:55:09 +0000

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

By: Michael C

Michael C — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:03:03 +0000

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.