Six degrees of Kevin Bacon has a musical counterpart. Boil the frog will create a playlist that takes you from one artist to another in as few steps as possible. Here’s the challenge – what is the most steps needed to take you from one to another? I managed 12 from Nick Drake to Deafheaven.
Any advances on 12?
Alternatively – any sublime playlists you discover – please post
http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com/index.html?src=nick%20drake&dest=Deafheaven
How wonderfully ingenious! What happy hours I can now spend trying to find seemingly impossible pairs.
Arvo Pärt to Pinky and Perky.
Ken Dodd to Hildegard Von Bingen
Björk to Astrud Gilberto
The Flowerpot Men to the Triffids
Adele to Fred Astaire
The Frog refused to accept Ken Dodd.
Instead I chose Ariana Grande to Hildegard….
http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com/index.html?src=Ariana%20Grande&dest=Hildegard%20Von%20Bingen
I think Hildegard was in Hawkwind for a while in the mid 80s. That should reduce the number of connections needed.
Hawkwind feat Hildegard Von Bingen! A dream team if ever there was one.
I can easily imagine the Tardis nipping off to medieval Germany and returning with Hildy to play an all-nighter at the Roundhouse in 1972.
Watch the video carefully. You may even spot her!
http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com/index.html?src=Hawkwind&dest=Hildegard%20von%20Bingen
“Watch the video carefully”
Like I need to be told to watch a video with Stacia in it carefully.
And she later guested with Lemmy on “No Sleep till Rupertsberg”.
Donovan to BTS in 15 steps (via The Lego Movie soundtrack) http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com/index.html?src=Donovan&dest=BTS
Who knew this would be a link in the chain from Donovan to anyone?
Didn’t Donovan invent Lego…
The frog doesn’t know John Otway or Patrik Fitzgerald. Stupid frog.
Naughty indeed! The Frog seems to play by its own rules.
This one was fun and had some interesting artists en route.
Bay City Rollers to Count Basie…
http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com/index.html?src=bay%20city%20rollers&dest=count%20basie
No Neil Innes, no June Tabor, no Martin Carthy.
Sons of Kemet to Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs in 14
http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com/index.html?src=sons%20of%20kemet&dest=Sam%20The%20Sham%20&%20The%20Pharaohs
Joao Gilberto to Gilbert O’ Sullivan
http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com/index.html?src=joao%20Gilberto&dest=gilbert%20O%27Sullivan
Stile Antico to Modern Jazz Quartet
http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com/index.html?src=stile%20antico&dest=modern%20jazz%20quartet
Once again some interesting choices.
Lordi to Lorde took 15 steps!
http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com/index.html?src=Lordi&dest=lorde
Sigur Ros to Dianna Ross in 11 steps.
http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com/index.html?src=sigur%20ros&dest=Diana%20Ross
Some steps are starting to recurr. The Frog does like the soundtrack from La La Land.
ABBA to ZZ Top in only 6.
http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com/index.html?src=abba&dest=zz%20top
.
The Only Ones to 10,000 Maniacs only takes 8.
http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com/index.html?src=the%20only%20ones&dest=10,000%20maniacs
Am feeling a bit dense and don’t really understand. What’s the link between the tracks? I don’t get it!
The algorithm behind the app takes any two artists/bands you type in and tries to find a harmonious route between the two. Whether the links work is, I think, a question for each listener to decide. I quite enjoy this circuitous route from Jah Wobble to the Afro Celt Soundsystem
So it’s not based on a common theme like songwriter, guitarist, producer, name of song etc?
More so the sound of each song? I still don’t really get it!
Boil the Frog lets you create a playlist of tracks that gradually takes you from one music style to another, without ever noticing the difference.
To create this app, Spotify artist similarity info is used to build an artist similarity graph of about 100,000 of the most popular artists. Each artist in the graph is connected to its most similar neighbors according to the Spotify’s artist similarity algorithm.
When a playlist between two artists is created, the graph is used to find the path between the two artists. The path isn’t necessarily the shortest path through the graph. Instead, priority is given to paths that travel through artists of similar popularity. If you start and end with a popular artist, you are more likely to find a path that takes you though other popular artists, and if you start with a long-tail artist you will likely find a path through other long-tail artists.
Once the path of artists is found, the best tracks are selected for the playlist – a well-known track for each artist that minimizes the difference in energy between this track, the previous track and the next track.
So it’s “like” the Kevin Bacon in that the connection can be along the lines of so and so worked with someone who, from a distance in the dark, was said to have looked a little like how he might have looked if he were made up to look like someone else. Subjective bollox as algorithm.
LOL – very good.
I’ll have nothing against subjective bollox – this whole site would collapse without the structure provided by subjective bollox.
That was an interesting tip about longtail artists, I’ll give it a whirl.
Nusrat to the Triffids took an interesting route.
http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com/index.html?src=Nusrat%20Fateh%20Ali%20Khan&dest=the%20Triffids
Or how about Los Van Van to Van Dyke Parks.
http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com/index.html?src=los%20van%20van&dest=van%20dyke%20parks
It’s an interesting way to discover new artists.
I suspect for several of their chains, there are steps which one might question. But no harm in that.
@salwarpe
Thanks, I can relax now!
Tommy Steele to Slipknot. 18 moves.
Beatles to Rolling Stones in, er, two. As in, Let it Be, To Beast of Burden
Whereas Mariza to Black Sabbath is an actually not bad playlist of 15 tracks. It even has DONOVAN.
http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com/index.html?src=mariza&dest=black%20sabbath
Surely Let it Be to Let it Bleed? This algorithm appears to be completely random
Slightly less random than the Afterword random playlist threads that appear, um, at random, on the fog/blorum, in that they attempt to sync in sound from one artist to another. It is true that your suggestion would be more felicitous.
This is probably something everyone knows, but we’re the Stones deliberately referencing the Beatles’ song with theirs?
Think it was a coincidence. And Let it Bleed preceded Let It Be (single and album), they may have been aware of the song though.
Given how close the two groups were – they had the same manager by then – I think it’s very unlikely to be a coincidence. The Let it Be sessions took place in January/February, Glyn Johns assembled the Get Back album in May, Let it Bleed didn’t come out for months after that. I think it’s also ‘bleed’ as in hearing Charlie in Jagger’s vocal track etc. Quite a clever title really.
Of course the song has nothing to do with the title.
There was something else like this a few years ago but it quickly got boring as nearly all of the connections seemed to be based on samples – Crimso to Kanye in one step and so on.