Tag: Music

Find a band’s musical influences using Python – Pearl Jam and Dr. Dre

I created a fun little program that will go and find the musical influences of any artist. It uses the Spotify APIs and a bit of logic.

The logic works like this:

  1. Find the artist on Spotify
  2. Go and find the earliest album that artist made.
  3. Get the related artists and their first album date
  4. Pick the related artist that has the closest album to 2 years before the original artist
  5. Start back up with #3
  6. Repeat until there are no artists left. Or until the program goes way off the rails.

Note: If there are no related artists with albums older than the oldest it will go back up the chain and try and find another route.

Source Code is on Github here.

Example #1 – Pearl Jam

Peal Jam Demo Mookie
This has some pretty great results. Starting with Pearl Jam’s first album Ten (1991), It goes all the way back to 1953 with decent results like Wire – Pink Flag, The Yardbirds – London 1963.
Continue reading “Find a band’s musical influences using Python – Pearl Jam and Dr. Dre”

How to Find New Music

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Here are my sources: (in order of reliability)

  • Last.FM / Pandora Internet Radio – I suggest using Last.FM because it’s more social. You can see what others listen to. Here is my Last.FM
  • Spinner CD Listening Party or Aol – These are AWESOME. They are a good way to listen to full CD’s before they are released.
    A good way to expand your ears.
  • NPR Music – All Songs Considered – Song of the Day, Concerts, Interviews are an awesome source of new music information. Plus they are really cool and funny.
  • Metacritic – Takes a bit of searching, but a great place to see what is Acclaimed.
  • Best of …. Lists – It’s always good to hear what others liked last year. Chances are, you will like it too!
  • Billboard – I go here when I want to find pop music. It beats listening to top 40 radio.

Then, when you find music. Buy It For Cheap On Amazon (Current Bestsellers)!

Hit up the Comments:
Please let me know of your favorite source. I’ll update the post with recommendations!