a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by cgod
cgod  ·  4373 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Presto.fm - a music streaming service to find niche artists that just works
Got some time to play around with Presto some more and have to say I really like it, and have a few observations.

If I put in a well known artists name I seem to get a bunch of better known artists in my cue. When searching for Harry Nilsson, it shoots back Van Dyke Parks, Randy Numen and a bunch of other artist I am familial with in the Nilsson vein. While not so interesting to me, a person who just got turned on to his music will find a bunch of other artist in that genera, probably exacly what 95% of people are looking for.

Artist that do a lot of collaboration get results dominated by their collaborations and collaboration partners. MF Doom gets you a list that is almost exclusively MF Doom and Madlib under aliases and in different collaboration projects, but nothing but them for the most part. J Dilla had about the same effect. The popularity of collaboration in rap seems to be pushing the discovery process off the tracks but they were pretty good mixes all the same.

A few times I got a good mix and then 4-5 songs by just one artist in a row. This happened with Arthur Russel but the tracks in a row were by John Fahey, a traditional folk guitarist, which was an abrupt departure from the nice selection of dance/disco tracks that came before it. Listening to Steve Braun was similer, I got a nice mix of music then five "The Vals" tracks in a row, a good many of them in a calypso style rather then in the New Wave genera I started in.

Searching early electroinca (60's-70's) I got a great selection of stuff I had never heard before, and then it shot off into psych/prog rock. "What the hell, where did the bleeps go" I thought, a bit annoyed, before I realized that almost every track was pretty much right up my ally.

Some less popular artist seems to have a "radio" station of the same name, so I found myself listening to a station that in no way related to my search.

I dislike most rock, but absolutely love the rock I love. Searching rock bands I love mostly sent back rock that I wanted to listen to many who I had never heard before, to which I have to say bravo. If you can find rock that I want to listen to then you have done something special.

I pretty much only use these services to find new music. Pandora either plays stuff I know or stuff I didn't want to know. Spotify has turned me on to some good stuff, but using it takes a bit of work and pushes UI filling adds often enough to annoy me. Last fm is better then pandora, but I can't say I use it much. Presto seems to fill a nice niche in the online music player landscape. It's easy to use, knew enough obscure music to make searching for a take off point a bit less frustrating then other services and turned me on to some stuff I will enjoy. Not repeating the same artist be it by their band name or in collaboration as much would be nice.

I think that you have a great product on your hands. I think it will appeal to the casual music fan and to the hardcore digger. I sure I will make an account. Hopefully it will just get better, if I like it now...