How to find a web engine that displayed a shimmering web of musical kinship

June 4, 2006 8:42 AM

I can't find a cool, graphical web engine for identifying similar bands that I once used -- input a band, and it would generate a neat display of others, with your pick at the center and the others radiating out with the closest being the most similar.

The key is that it was graphical, not like gnoosic. You could re-center the web by clicking on another displayed artist you liked, and it would re-orient. Any ideas? I'm sorry if I have overlooked the obvious somehow, or if it's been taken offline.

P.S. I know that there are other means of finding similar artists, and I have tried diligently both on Google and in the AskMeFi backfiles to locate this particular one, but without luck.

posted by Clyde Mnestra to computers & internet (11 comments total)

As far as I can remember (memories a bit hazy), that was part of the music genome project which runs pandora. Could be wrong though.
posted by TwoWordReview at 8:53 AM on June 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

Was it liveplasma (formerly musicplasma)?
posted by amarynth at 8:55 AM on June 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

Sounds like All Music Guide.
posted by ori at 8:56 AM on June 4, 2006

Thanks for the amazingly fast results. The liveplasma is definitely the same concept, though it looks comletely different -- perhaps I saw it when it was still in a testing phase. And it is entirely possible that it was a pre-Pandora genome product; what I had in mind was not oriented toward actually playing the music, which is obviously a desirable feature too.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 9:04 AM on June 4, 2006

I think it was probably musicplasma, which is now liveplasma.
posted by afx237vi at 9:16 AM on June 4, 2006

Music-map.com does it but I do remember a slicker version too
posted by TwoWordReview at 9:19 AM on June 4, 2006

(The slicker version being liveplasma!!!)
posted by TwoWordReview at 9:21 AM on June 4, 2006

Music-map.com was exactly what I was thinking of -- but liveplasma and the others are worthy additions! Many thanks.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 9:31 AM on June 4, 2006

Thanks for this question, Clyde. The "people who like x like y" approach taken by Music-map seems, to me, to give more useful responses than liveplamsa... but liveplasma incurred my wrath right off by thinking I meant "Burl Ives" when I typed "The Hives."

Also, your username is awesome.
posted by ibmcginty at 11:33 AM on June 4, 2006

Gnod is one I remember being around a long time ago.
posted by ejaned8 at 12:17 PM on June 4, 2006

ack, just read the part about it not being gnod.
posted by ejaned8 at 12:20 PM on June 4, 2006