Published at 1:18 PM on September 10, 2008

By Mark DiCristina

First Impressions of iTunes Genius

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Just last week, during a brainstorming session, Paste publisher Nick Purdy wondered aloud why Apple hasn't done much with the listening preferences contained in his iTunes library. With the introduction of its Genius playlist generator, Apple has put all that data to work, and the results are surprisingly good. Here's a sample of what iTunes gave me on my first three Genius playlists: 

Seed song: 

"Archangel" - Burial 

Results: 

"Don't Save Us From The Flames" - M83

"The Class of 73 Bells" - Prefuse 73

"Men of Station" - 13 & God

"Endless Summer" - Fennesz

"Flim" - Aphex Twin


Seed song: 

"For Emma" - Bon Iver

Results: 

"White Winter Hymnal" - Fleet Foxes

"Fake Empire" - The National

"Hljómalind" - Sigur Rós

"Resurrection Fern" - Iron & Wine

"Soul on Fire" - Spiritualized


Seed song: 

"God Only Knows" - The Beach Boys

Results: 

"Do You Realize?" - The Flaming Lips

"Heart of Gold" - Neil Young

"Rebellion (Lies)" - The Arcade Fire

"About a Girl" - Nirvana

"Gimme Shelter" - The Rolling Stones


Unlike Pandora and Last.fm, you're stuck with the music that is both in your library and part of the iTunes store catalog, so there are clear limits to what you can discover. I tried to run Genius on a Bill Fay song and got nothing. Of course, when your iTunes library contains tens of thousands of songs, it's fun to re-discover all the great music you've neglected since the new Deerhunter album came out. 

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