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I don't really have any intuition as to where the The Blues Brothers should lie on this type of map, so maybe you could explain why you think their placement is

I don't really have any intuition as to where the The Blues Brothers should lie on this type of map, so maybe you could explain why you think their placement is so ridiculous? The similarity algorithm appears to be taken directly from last.fm, which uses some kind of collaborative filtering method on user listening stats to determine artist similarity. In general, I think this map does a good job of grouping similar artists. Mapping a high dimensional similarity space down to two dimensions is undoubtedly going to result in a few data points that seem out of place, particularly when dealing with content like artist similarity where individual perceptions can vary drastically.

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
I don't know where they should go on this type of map, but I do know that there's not much in common between The Blues Brothers and Frank Sinatra, or The Blues Brothers and The Beatles. Just listening to the music suggests there's not much in common. Any algorithm that suggests there is is, to my mind, suspect. I don't know much, indeed, anything, about most of the bands/artists on this map, so I'm not going to suggest any rearrangement, but I'd be interested to see this concept of "similarity". Actually, I probably wouldn't be interested, but I hereby announce my position as a skeptic.
- stan_rogers 17y ago
  As a musician (one who, admittedly, wound up owing money when the bar tab was subtracted from the gate) I can't think of a better place to put them. They actually live on a line just south of the Sinatra-Beatles meridian. If you look just southwest of Sinatra, you'll see that Cab Calloway lives on the true line, with Count Basie just to the left. This would be the "dirty", less polished, and less, well, white version of the Sinatra-Beatles line (which would probably extend westward to Paul Whiteman if he appeared on the map at all). No, the one that puzzles me is Sarah Brightman. I can understand them trying to keep her away from the cool kids, but she's got to be feeling like she got off the bus in the wrong neighborhood. The style of music the Blues Brothers played, the Stax sound, cuts the continuum running from jazz-influenced big band risqué pop to straight-ahead risqué rock and roll. The rhythm section is from the rock world -- electric bass, guitar and piano, with foursquare beat-keeping drumming (as opposed to the sort of thing that, say, a Buddy Rich would do) -- the vocal performances are clearly in the Calloway-Prima-Charles lineage, and the horns are pure big band pop.
  - RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
    Hmm. OK, I'll go and listen to some more and try to hear the similarities and connections you make. Thanks for taking the time and effort to explain - 'preciate it.

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago

I don't know where they should go on this type of map, but I do know that there's not much in common between The Blues Brothers and Frank Sinatra, or The Blues Brothers and The Beatles. Just listening to the music suggests there's not much in common. Any algorithm that suggests there is is, to my mind, suspect. I don't know much, indeed, anything, about most of the bands/artists on this map, so I'm not going to suggest any rearrangement, but I'd be interested to see this concept of "similarity". Actually, I probably wouldn't be interested, but I hereby announce my position as a skeptic.

stan_rogers 17y ago
As a musician (one who, admittedly, wound up owing money when the bar tab was subtracted from the gate) I can't think of a better place to put them. They actually live on a line just south of the Sinatra-Beatles meridian. If you look just southwest of Sinatra, you'll see that Cab Calloway lives on the true line, with Count Basie just to the left. This would be the "dirty", less polished, and less, well, white version of the Sinatra-Beatles line (which would probably extend westward to Paul Whiteman if he appeared on the map at all). No, the one that puzzles me is Sarah Brightman. I can understand them trying to keep her away from the cool kids, but she's got to be feeling like she got off the bus in the wrong neighborhood. The style of music the Blues Brothers played, the Stax sound, cuts the continuum running from jazz-influenced big band risqué pop to straight-ahead risqué rock and roll. The rhythm section is from the rock world -- electric bass, guitar and piano, with foursquare beat-keeping drumming (as opposed to the sort of thing that, say, a Buddy Rich would do) -- the vocal performances are clearly in the Calloway-Prima-Charles lineage, and the horns are pure big band pop.
- RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
  Hmm. OK, I'll go and listen to some more and try to hear the similarities and connections you make. Thanks for taking the time and effort to explain - 'preciate it.