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Comment by RyanZAG | Hacker News Reader

Blue or Red isn't really a difficult decision to make. If you flip a coin you're already 50% likely to be correct. Musical taste is much much harder.

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For me personally, I've completely quit using Pandora because every station I try to make ends up playing Top 40 pop music. At least Last.FM sticks to the genre I've put in, Pandora seems to try to steer me to listen to songs they want me to listen to. Really annoying when I start listening to Americana and classic country and end up with Drake several hours later.

What makes Last.FM so good is they recommend music based on similar users, not similar artists. An artist I frequently use to demonstrate this difference is Hank Williams III. People who are familiar with him knows he plays both neo-traditional country and "hellbilly," so it's difficult to find similar artists.

To generate a Hank III radio station, Pandora analyzes his music, and -- based on similarities in composition and genre ("major key tonality," "traditional country influes") -- creates a station of top 40 pop country songs, which is pretty much the antithesis of Hank III's music.

Last.FM, on the other hand, analyzes the listening habits of other Hank III fans, and correctly assumes someone listening to Hank III radio will not only be a fan of outlaw and traditional country music, but also of bands like the Misfits and Black Flag.

All roads lead to Drake and Ke$ha.

Timber!

That too!

It's also likely that the blue/red preference is a much more simple, more fundamental choice, likely tied into the "kernel" of the brain, whereas music is more of a "user space app".

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That's not actually what he said, but good job taking offense.

It's easy especially if they know the zip code.

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