Reply To: Other music… *gasp*
Briefly, and this may not answer your question, but as it gives you a random song, you can approve of / disapprove of it, and they factor the preferences they get from that into their algorithm. That help?
For slightly more detail, here‘s the link to the description of the Music Genome Project on Pandora — they don’t get too technical to be understood, I think. A quick read (five paragraphs), and pretty interesting.
Relevant quotes:
Each song in the Music Genome Project is analyzed using up to 400 distinct musical characteristics by a trained music analyst. These attributes capture not only the musical identity of a song, but also the many significant qualities that are relevant to understanding the musical preferences of listeners…
The Music Genome Project’s database is built using a methodology that includes the use of precisely defined terminology, a consistent frame of reference, redundant analysis, and ongoing quality control to ensure that data integrity remains reliably high. Pandora does not use machine-listening or other forms of automated data extraction.