I had my doubts. Maybe it was when Bob Lefsetz praised iTunes Genius while taking a swipe at a non-Apple software application called Pandora, something millions of music fans (Pro-Apple and not) love and recognize as a leader in effective music recomendation.

Genius' playlist making abilities have been alright so far. However, whenever I had truly challenged Genius, it had told me that there was not enough data to proceed (a dialog box that says "Genius is not available for this song"). Some of those songs have recently been fixed based on new data from other iTunes users , so I do not get the warning box when I select a Brian Jonestown Massacre or Gang of Four song like I did a month ago. Even if Genius can't offer you a playlist based on the songs in your library, it will still recommend music for you to buy at their iTunes store. 

I decided to create a playlist based on one of my favorite Naked Raygun songs "Livewire" (from the 1988 Jettison album). I was fascinated with the results...fascinated how off they were and how that many obvious songs in my collection were missing.

Any Naked Raygun fans reading this? Good. If you are from Chicago, you probably know the lineage of midwest punk rock and where Naked Raygun's place is: top and center. You also know that NR heavily relied on a strong first and second generation English punk influence when most American Hardcore bands from the mid to late 80s were inspired more by domestic bands.

So, without initially looking at LAST.fm as a solid resource and second opinion, I would expect iTunes Genius to pick songs from fellow Chicagoans Screeching Weasel, Bollweevils, Articles of Faith, and the Effigies...not to mention NR sister bands Pegboy and Big Black. Maybe even something from Chicago outside of the direct punk circle while retaining a high energy rock value... like Ministry or maybe even Cheap Trick. I would expect to see songs from Chelsea, Buzzcocks, and Stiff Little Fingers (all bands that Naked Raygun have covered) as well as other English bands like The Clash or the Exploited...maybe even Joy Division. I would expect other midwest hardcore bands from that time frame as well like Husker Du, Necros, or Negative Trend. 

All bands I have mentioned above have atleast one song in my iTunes library.

So, let's review the top 25 songs suggested from iTunes Genious for a Naked Raygun's "Livewire":

My assesment: I remember when "Treason" from Raygun's 1989 album Understand? was receiving moderate airplay on college radio stations and modern rock specialty shows. In addition, MTV's 120 Minutes reviewed the album without a music video to support it and proclaimed NR the greatest American punk rock band currently in existance.  So in the Genius list there seems to be some modern rock radio favorites from an era that also represents Naken Raygun's most climatic (1987 - 1990). There are some punk classics on this list too, but I can't hesitate pointing out that they seem very typical (Motorhead, Sex Pistols, DK). Although I see my favorite Cars song on this list as well as my all time favorite artist David Bowie, I am not sure how they relate to Naked Raygun enough to be among the top 25 song suggestions. Interpol confuses me the most. Still, I dont see any other mid-80s American midwest hardcore band that are in my iTunes library. I am sure that bands like Husker Du and Big Black exists in thousands of other users collections, but it seems obvious iTunes is choosing the most popular bands from everyone's lists. 

Now here are the top 25 similar artists as designed by Last.fm and their data:

1. Pegboy

2. Articles of Faith

3. Leatherface

4. Dag Nasty

5. Angry Somoans

6. Husker Du

7. Big Black

8. Screeching Weasel

9. Jawbreaker

10. Die Kruezen

11. Minutemen

12. Poison Idea

13. Negative Approach

14. Government Issue

15. Fear

16. Avail

17. Effigies

18. Jawbox

19. Nation of Ulysses

20. Flipper

21. TSOL

22. The Replacements

23. Mission of Burma

24. NoMeansNo

25. DOA

(Bad Brains came in at no. 27)

My assessment: My original predictions were fairly close. The only thing I didnt consider is the bi-coastal hardcore bands represented like Dag Nasty, Jawbox, Avail etc. Interesting to not see any Buzzcocks or SLF. As you can see the territorial behavoir of punk rock is evident with the occupancy of many Chicago bands. If you make an argument that Naked Raygun is the greatest punk rock band from Chicago, then numbers 2 through 5 are represented in Last.fm's top 10 (Pegboy, AOF, Weasel, and Big Black). 

Pandora uses human anaylization of musical attribues logged into a huge database (called the Music Genome Project), for which the Pandora software finds appropiate song matches based on those attributes when listeners design custom radio streams. It's kind of like a dating service for songs. From that point Pandora does allow listener input to influence future matches in their radio streams. I created a station based on Naked Raygun. Here is what Pandora fed me.

25. "KYEO" by Fugazi

My assesment: Nice to see Pandora include some English punk bands that were known to influence NR (Damned, SLF). One musical attribute that Music Genome Project is obviously considering is the anthemic background "call and response " vocal styles of Naked Raygun, which may explain the odd addition of Pennywise (which incorporates a similar backing vocal style), but supports greatly the inclusion of The Misfits as well as other songs like "Dont Stand in Line", World War III", and "Liar" - all three feature the title sung in a "in your face" style . 

When it comes to music recommendations for a Naked Raygun fan, I am not sure which application wins. Definetly not iTunes/Genius. Probably the winner should be a real human who is also into Naked Raygun (just like the old days of punk rock and viral promotion). Each service has a very encouraging method paired with it's own discouraging limitations. Genius is limited by iTunes users only, and only ones who agreed to let Genius scope their collection. Last.fm has registered users that use iTunes, WinAmp, and Windows Media Player as well as solid social foundation that allows a back-door recommendations. But like Genius, if the best human resource in the world is a kid still listening to vinyl that has never owned a computer, you will never get that kid's more genius input. Pandora uses a theory that , for discussion sake, if you like one band with distorted guitars and snotty vocals then you may like all bands that have snotty vocals and distorted guitars. We all know that's not the case. Our musical tastes can be bounded by such things as geographical origins and political views, things that Pandora is initially blind to. If I heard a band that sounded just like Naked Raygun, but with racists lyrics, I am definetly not going to like them as much as Raygun. Luckily Pandora invites the listener input to help shape future receomndations.

I welcome other experinces with Genius, as well as Last.fm and Pandora. Feel free to leave a comment.