This Is My Jam Adds Related Jam Playlists
By Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.
Music-sharing site This Is My Jam – whose founders call it “slow music” because in contrast to the way many music apps encourage the sharing of everything, it only lets you post a single jam at any given time — launched a new feature this week designed to help users find more people to follow.
This is not just another social music feature, because This Is My Jam encourages people to share only music that’s near and dear to their hearts. You can only post one song at a time, and it only lasts a week. The site is designed sort of like a social network, because it encourages you to follow other users, so it can play you all of their favorite songs of that moment from a single button — neat.
“We’re getting a great response to the ‘related jam’ playlists so far, as well as the overhaul of our ’Explore‘ screens,” said This Is My Jam co-founder Matt Ogle. “Being able to take someone from a song they love to other great jams from people they haven’t met yet is something we’ve wanted to do better for ages.”
One song that is near and dear to my heart, personally, is “Kurious Oranj” by The Fall. I once flew 12,000 miles to see this band, as I wrote for NPR, and my fandom all started with that song. Let’s see what happens when I follow the “related” recommendations for my jam (Note: This Is My Jam uses data from The Echo Nest, publisher of Evolver.fm).
Here’s the first screen of related jams:
and the second:
and the third:
There are a couple stinkers in there, as far as my taste is concerned (Bad Religion, NOFX – no thanks). But for the most part, these songs look interesting to me — Patty Smith doing “Smells Like Teen Spirit”? Television, Magazine, XTC, Rapture, Joy Division, Titus Andronicus, and plus, even better, some bands I have never heard of before? Plus songs posted by other Fall fans? Especially “I Feel Voxish?”
Yes, please.
Remember, this is only songs that are actively being Jammed as of right now, which limits the field a bit. And the point here, really, isn’t so much to find stuff to listen to right now, as it is to link up with new people to follow in my main feed. By following the people who Jammed these related Jams will make my main This Is My Jam homepage even better, the next time I play it.
As proud as we all invariably are of our own Jams, it’s other people’s that we should be chasing down, especially if we know their taste is similar to our own.
