Rockola: experiment with your music mood

Written on June 29, 2008 – 9:00 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Summer in the City by Joe Cocker, Coldplay’s Clocks, and Loser by Beck are essentially all purple songs, they’re just from different decades - according to Rockola.fm. This Spanish site gives the whole “music to suit your mood”-thing a new boost by combining several factors we’ve seen separately on other sites before. It combines the color factor from Guitarati, the year factor from Yamelo, and the similar artists factor from Last.fm.

rockola FM

So you start by clicking somewhere in the colorful circle, or by typing in your favorite artist. Your semi-personal radio station then starts blasting away. Don’t worry about making the wrong start, as you can always correct Rockola by giving a thumbs up or down for a certain song. Along the way, Rockola will learn about your taste. I personally hate it when an algorithm claims that it can determine what my music taste is, I don’t even know what I like myself. But hey, maybe this promise does work for you.

It’s recommended to sign up, as this gives you access to a tagging feature, unlimited listening time and a share option. Well, thank you but no thanks, Rockola is a fun way to explore new songs, but I don’t see it becoming my main source for new music. For that, I stay close to an old friend, owned by CBS.

I hope you like that post!

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algorithm, guitarati, lastfm, music, music 2.0, music taste, radio, rockola.fm, yamelo

About the author: Ernst-Jan is a blogger and journalist, who previously worked in New York to cover news at the United Nations. Next to writing, he's also a singer in the band Christina Five.

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4 comments/trackbacks to “Rockola: experiment with your music mood”

Jul 2, 2008: Rockola:用你的心情狀態來找音樂 - MMDays
[...] Mr. March 要來跟各位介紹的服務是 Rockla [...]
Jul 2, 2008: » Rockola:用你的心情狀態來找音樂
[...] Mr. March 要來跟各位介紹的服務是 Rockla [...]

By ottocero on Jun 30, 2008

Hello there,

We at rockola believe that as you mentioned, users do not know what they want, but they certainly know what they do not want. We simply suggest music similar to your tastes so you can decide on the new stuff whether you like it or not, and the discovery experience can be astonishing when you discover not only within rockola suggestionsa dn your own stations, but as well when you listen to someoenelses station.

By the way, thank you for your post

[Reply]
By Jack on Jul 4, 2008

Hmm, Ernst-Jan - normally I agree wholeheartedly with your appraisals, but I think I’d give Rockola a few more ‘me gusta’ ticks than you have.

I’m a massive fan of Last.fm too, but where I feel Rockola gets one over on Last is as a source of playlist pleasure. Like you I use Last.fm as a primary source of new music recommendation, but it’s so easy to just come home after a day’s work, click a suitable colour on the Rockola spectrograph, sit back and enjoy.

…of course there’s the odd curveball - you’re listening to some old school Shakespeares Sister and suddenly Whitney Houston blasts out, but these are surprisingly few and far between.

I’m guessing that they got the name from old style Rockloa made jukeboxes, and if you think ‘jukebox’ not ‘Last.fm rivalling musical discovery’, Rockola’s a great act. Original too, not a cover.

[Reply]

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