Mee Blog - music

We are happy to announce the launch of the Music Hunter, a new app supported by MeeMix music API. The application was launched over the Conduit network and on Facebook.

The Music Hunter allows users to create personalized music video channels based on the YouTube database. Channels can be created by typing an artist name, using Facebook Liked! artists or choosing a favorite genre. Once a channel is created, the MeeMix platform searches for the most relevant and current music videos from YouTube and plays them just like a TV channel.

Channels can be edited in terms of the type of videos they play. So, if you are in the mood for lip-dub or live concerts you can set the channel to broadcast those video types only. In addition, users can tune their channels’discovery level. Sliding the knob all the way to "Favorites" will tell the channel to play more of the positively rated artists. "Discovery" will increase the amount of new artists’ videos and introduce users to artists that match their taste.

Concert tickets recommendations are presented in real time and are personalized to users’ taste based on their music preferences.

You can use the new app to create your own personalized music TV channel and get only videos you like, and receive updates on new YouTube videos as the application syncs with YouTube regularly and automatically incorporates new videos into the relevant channels.


You can also use this app as your own concert ticket recommendation system.
We will make sure to let you know if there is a concert coming up around your area that you may like. We are still working on adding more events and increasing our ticket database’s geographical coverage. If you are a concert ticket seller and would like to include your tickets in the Music Hunter recommendations, feel free to contact us.

Happy Hunting.

The successful TV show has chosen to offer its viewers a Pandora-like
personalized radio application designed to play a great selection of contestants from the show’s entire nine-season history. Mako, a Keshet Interactive company and leading media company in Israel, used MeeMix music API to launch a first in the market, unique application.

Mazda took sponsorship over the web application, which was designed as a car radio allowing users to choose their favorite contestant of all times and receive a personalized radio station playing similar artists and songs from the show. The advanced "car radio" also offered a Mood Control feature to tune the station's atmosphere, from calm to upbeat songs.

Statistical reports show that the application increased users' session time by over 200%. We are more than happy to watch innovation, user satisfaction and commercial value come together in this application.

Update: the application was live as part of mako.co.il throughout the 9th season up to August 2011.

Welcome to the latest addition in our tips, trips and tricks section, which focuses this time on how to discover new music in MeeMix:

There are several ways to do so, the most immediate one is to open your own station by a favorite artist, song or genre. As a general tip, a station created by selecting a song or artist will reflect your taste more accurately than creating a station by genre.
Each station you create is designed to play songs that you know and love as well as music you never heard but will probably like. You can create a station that by clicking the “Create Station” on the left panel. This will lead you to choose how to create your station – whether by artist, genre or particular song. After you created the station you can easily edit the station by clicking the “Edit Station” Button, where you can add songs or artists or block them from your station.
Another way of discovering music is by listening to other members stations; just make sure that they have some affiliation with your taste in music stations. Here are a couple of ideas:

• Your friends: navigating to your friends bar on the right panel. There you can listen to their stations by clicking on their username. This will lead you to a menu displaying their profile. The profile includes “Stations”, which you can listen to by clicking the “Play” Icon, on the left.



• Station search: If you’d like to discover stations of more than just your friends, and tap in to the vast musical cuisine that MeeMix users have to offer, you can do that by heading over to “Music” on the top bar. There, click the Stations link which will lead you to a listing of all the stations in MeeMix. You can find stations by popularity, genre, online or offline users, favorite artists and more. Once you find the right station for you, simply click the play “icon” in order to add it to your personal stations. You can also discuss the music featured in the station through the station home, clickable in the Home icon.



• Song Fans: if you love a particular song, you can always find similar users who are also fans of the song, by clicking on the “Song Fans” Icon, in the Mee Play plan. There you can checkout the people who also dig the song, and you can add them and their stations to your MeeMix favorites.

Every week, MeeMix musicologists integrate and add thousands of New Releases and even more plain ol' great music to the MeeMix music catalog. We decided it was high time to clue you in on new music added to MeeMix so you won’t miss a thing!

The MeeMix Monthly Newsletter is personalized to your very own taste in music. From the latest in our new and improved music catalog, you'll only get the info that pertains to your unique music style.

How?

We understand what you like to listen to and can relate your music style to the new releases we added to our music catalog. Our newsletter generator uses your taste preferences to search our system for the tracks and albums that interest you. Only news about these items is included in the newsletter that is designed especially for you.

So say "NO" to the one-size-fits-all newsletter format you're used to, and belt out a loud "YES" to the MeeMix personalized newsletter experience.

The important (and nearly impossible) thing to do in order to enjoy the album, it to throw off any pre-conceptions of what an album of Tom Waits interpretations should sound like. And for that matter, what we should expect from Scarlett Johansson as a singer. Yes, these are still Tom Waits songs, but Johansson takes them in a completely different direction than the original version.

The music on the album, orchestrated and produced by Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio, can be best described as contemporary dream pop (think Low, Talk Talk or For Against) with ambient influences spread throughout. It lends an interesting and vastly different interpretation to Waits usual sound. And although the music stays the tried-and-true area of the genre, it is in top notch form, thanks to the skillful ear of Sitek, who managed to suit the right sound, echoing and reverbing lush synth pads, string lines, or brass throughout the album to sonically complete Johansson's rather flat voice.

And on that topic - Johansson's singing – well, she isn't a great singer. Her monosyllabic singing, on songs like "No One Knows I'm Gone" can be almost fit inducing at times. But the number of times when she and Sitek do manage to pull it off is much greater than the number the duds in the album, and that, eventually, makes the album a worthwhile listen.

Recommended Tracks

"I Don't Want to Blow Up": Johansson's singing stays monotone, but the usual Sitek noise, fuzz and detuned strangeness that skip around the mix turn this to a great song.

"Fallin' Down": Bravely eccentric and delicate synth pop.

The rowdy and rebellious metal head-banger. The smiley and shiny Britney fan. The Dungeons-and-Dragons-playing, dreamy-eyed indie music enthusiast.

Despite the prevalence of PC attitudes in this day and age, popular musical stereotypes appear to remain intact and strong as ever. We may find it hard to recall whether we developed these opinions on the basis of our personal life experiences, or whether Hollywood just force-fed them to us. But they are here, still, after all these years.

But what if there was actually something to it?





A research performed by psychologists at the University of Texas attempted to find the link between preference of music types and personality attributes. The researchers used music experts to classify 4 broad types of musical preferences, based on their music and lyrics:

1. Reflective and Complex - blues, jazz, classical, and folk music
2. Intense and Rebellious - rock, alternative, and heavy metal
3. Upbeat and Conventional - pop, country, religious
4. Energetic and Rhythmic - rap/hip-hop, soul/funk, and electronica/dance

While these four types obviously do not cover all genres and listeners, they do reflect general trends, based statistically on info supplied by 3500 study subjects.

Next, the researchers gave well-known personality inventory tests to the subjects, and then observed which personality attributes go hand-in-hand with which of the four music preferences.

Let’s cut to the chase. Here are some of the study’s conclusions with regard to music and personality:

Blues, jazz or classical music fans tend to:

• be inventive
• have active imagination and higher verbal intelligence
• be tolerant of others, and reject conservative ideals

Rock, alternative or heavy metal fans tend to:

• be curious about different things
• consider themselves intelligent
• not to be disagreeable or neurotic

Pop, country or religious fans tend to:

• be cheerful and socially outgoing
• perceive themselves as physically attractive
• be conservative

Rap/hip-hop, soul/funk or electronic fans tend to:

• be talkative and full of energy
• see themselves as physically attractive
• shun conservative ideals

So do personality and mental ability play a role in how we form our musical preferences? Or is it the other way around?
Do we choose to listen to certain music as a means to say something about our social identity?
And how should a college professor enjoying a Christina Aguilera tune feel about these findings?

More importantly, check out your main genre presented in your profile page (on the right panel). Do you fit the stereotype..?


Adapted from: “The Do Re Mi’s of Everyday Life: The Structure and Personality Correlates of Music Preferences”, by Peter J. Rentfrow and Samuel D. Gosling, The University of Texas at Austin. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003 (available only through academic subscription).

Two years after their last studio album, Black Holes & Revelations, was released, Muse are back with a nice package that includes a 20 track DVD and a 14 track CD.
Now, Muse have always been hard to define - Alternative Rock? Prog?
To me they’ll always sound like a heavy metal version of Queen that’s copulating with Radiohead.

In any case, the album captures all the magic, grandeur and stamina that is Muse, in a live environment. Vocalist Matthew Bellamy comes off as Freddy Mercury on speed and the ever dependable duo of bassist Christopher Wolstenholme and drummer Dominic Howard provide fantastic rhythmic support.

From the Dramatic entrance of Knight Of Cydonia to the gentle and tragic-sounding Unintended, Muse are masters of their craft, a real rock band in a sense that is sadly almost extinct in today’s music industry.

Recommended tracks:
"Knights of Cydonia": The band’s futuristic single makes even more sense when preformed live.
"Time Is Running Out": the rock anthem gets even louder here, Muse really tear through it mercilessly.

Today we launch our Mee Game application in Facebook and Bebo at once.

As MeeMix members, you got the chance to play the Mee Game first. Now you can also challenge your Facebook and Bebo members for chart domination.

As part of this launch we made it possible to synchronize your MeeMix and Facebook accounts. So if you've already got an amazingly high score in MeeMix, don't worry, once you install the Mee Game application your score will be updated in the Facebook and Bebo charts.

You can also have your favorite MeeMix radio station and loved artists displayed in your Facebook and Bebo Profile. To synchronize the accounts, all you need to do is install the application, click that big, juicy, orange “Join” button in it and then login to your MeeMix account.

Enjoy the Mix, now in Facebook and Bebo as well.