- The Guardian, Friday 21 November 2008
In the past few years, several websites have emerged that can direct you towards music you might like, by suggesting similar artists when you type in a favourite act. Last.fm is perhaps the most famous, but a new site has just popped up, with an intriguing twist. Rather than following Last.fm by using other users' tastes to inform its suggestions, Mufin.com's software has calculated the "essence" of almost 5m songs, by analysing sound properties such as tempo, harmony, instruments and sound density. Because it doesn't take into account genre or era, it turns up some unexpected results; if you like the Stones Roses' Fool's Gold, for example, it suggests you'd enjoy Gummophon by Viennese techno artist Langoth (and you might well). It also spots a subtle, but definite, sonic relationship between Umbrella by Rihanna (pictured) and King Crimson's Elephant Talk. In truth, Last.fm's picks are more likely to suit your current tastes, but Mufin's are more pleasingly unpredictable.
Mufin's audio streams are limited to 30 seconds, so head elsewhere to properly explore its suggestions. Jango.com is currently one of the best places to hear full songs on demand, for free. Sign up to the site, type in King Crimson and you'll be offered a dozen of the prog titans' tracks, including Elephant Talk. Listen to that, and the site will then automatically play tracks by "similar" artists, based on its users' tastes (so, in this case, Toto and Heart). Sites like these make you wonder if you'll ever need to buy music again; after all, if you can play every track from the UK's biggest selling album of 2008, Duffy's Rockferry, in full, whenever you like, why pay for it? Jango is legal too, with reasonably unobtrusive banner ads funding royalty payments to artists.
If you'd rather discover some brand new music, then another streaming site is offering a particularly fun way to do so. Sign up to thenextbigsound.com and you become a record company "mogul", with 10 slots to fill on your virtual label. You can then listen to scores of real-life unsigned bands who've uploaded their demos. If you like what you hear, you "sign" that band to your roster. Then, if other users do the same, you're awarded points for spotting them early. Those points won't earn you anything beyond a higher position on the moguls chart, but it's oddly compelling stuff, as you find yourself flicking through acts trying to find a new gem. And there's an undeniable satisfaction to be had from finding one. Fact is, however far New Jersey beat-maker Cito On the Beat (citoonthebeat.thenextbigsound.com) gets in the rap game, the first label to sign him will always have been Click to Download records.
