Community Blog

Audio Journal Of A Music Curator

In 2017, I started working as a contractor for Pandora in Oakland. Pandora was creating their on-demand streaming service, integrating it with their classic radio service, and I joined a team optimizing music metadata for this launch. I took to it right away, loved the work and the people there, continued on, and SiriusXM eventually hired me full-time.

The Future of the Music Genome Project®: Unlocking the Long Tail

Twenty-five years ago, the Music Genome Project® was conceived as a solution to the cold start problem in music recommendation. A dedicated team of trained musicologists has spent a quarter century painstakingly analyzing millions of songs — categorizing instrumentation, genre, and mood, mapping rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic structures, and even conducting lyrical analysis.

To date, we’ve analyzed over 2.2 million songs. While this is an impressive achievement, it represents only a small fraction of all the music that exists. So, what’s next for the Music Genome Project?

This month: Black History Month, new blog posts, playlist challenges, and Pandora Presents: Durand Bernarr.

This month: New year, new badges, Collaborative Cuts, and AMP Homepage update.

This month: Music for the holidays, Top Thumb Hundred: 2024, Introduction to Featured Tracks, Collaborative Cuts: Holiday Playlist, and Artists to Watch in 2025.