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Show HN: Anthrology – Time-Traveling Radio
Hey HN, I often wish I could go back to some year and listen to the radio as it played then, with songs that fit that time period.
But not every moment is the same, and humans turn to music for various purposes. Genres feel arbitrary and limiting, so I thought it would make more sense to create stations based on a specific vibe. Are you looking for something chill or intense? Alone or with friends? Is this a dinner party, a dance floor, or winding down afterhours?
So I built Anthrology as a way to navigate across time and vibes. I've been listening to it pretty much nonstop for a couple of days, and I hope you'll enjoy it too.
Songs are already playing by the time you tune to a year and vibe. You can tune to some other moment and come back, and the track will still be playing—but you'll have missed a little bit of the song, just like the radio!
And the radio is (more or less) deterministic, so we all hear the same tracks.
Tune in and enjoy!
- gavinhenry 8mo agoI absolutely love it! Tell us more about what's underneath?
- airstrike 8mo agoGlad you like it! I've been listening to it nonstop. The core is database of >9k songs tagged by mood (and a fun fact!). Coming up with the right 2 axes for the mood (solitary <-> social, chill <-> intense) took a few iterations. I think I need to get the number of songs to about 20–30k soon, to add more variety. Then there's an algorithm to determine which song to sample given the mood/year combo and song attributes, which forms a radio schedule. You can see some of those song attributes by visiting a song's detailed page (click on the "now playing" marque text or visit /stats and search). I've added keyboard shortcuts and the rest is just polish!
- SaltwaterCoffee 8mo ago[dead]
- airstrike 8mo agoThank you!! I've been wishing for this for years, to be honest, and happy to have finally built it.
- ranausmanai 8mo agoLooks pretty interesting. I am going to try it now.
- acheilies 8mo ago[dead]
- amwet 8mo agoOn mobile the this seems to just play static.
- airstrike 8mo agoWorks here on Firefox on iOS. What are you using? And did you tune to any stations?
- Paulo75 7mo agoPretty cool concept - tried it out and it played really smoothly. The idea of navigating music by year + vibe instead of genre makes a lot of sense. Well done!
- airstrike 7mo agoThank you!