Friday random ten: Let’s get groovy

I’ll say this for the Genius feature – even as I’ve been critical of it for not being as broad in its scope as I think it should be, it’s not always easy to guess what direction it will take when you feed it a song. For example, when I input “Spinning Wheel” by Blood, Sweat & Tears, I expected a blues-oriented list. Apparently, the Genius algorithm was geared more towards an era match than it was towards a genre match, so what I got was this:

As listed

1. “Spinning Wheel” – Blood, Sweat & Tears
2. “It’s Too Late” – Carole King
3. “The Air That I Breathe” – The Hollies
4. “Kodachrome” – Paul Simon
5. “Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo” – Rick Derringer
6. “Jesus Is Just Alright” – Doobie Brothers
7. “That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” – Carly Simon
8. “Casey Jones” – Grateful Dead
9. “Canticle/Scarborough Fair” – Simon and Garfunkel
10. “Morning Has Broken” – Cat Stevens

As played

1. “Spinning Wheel” – Blood, Sweat & Tears
2. “The Air That I Breathe” – The Hollies
3. “Long Distance Runaround” – Yes
4. “Blue Sky” – The Allman Brothers
5. “Goodnight Saigon” – Billy Joel
6. “That’s All” – Genesis
7. “That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” – Carly Simon
8. “Train, Train” – Blackfoot
9. “Sledgehammer” – Peter Gabriel
10. “Kentucky Rain” – Elvis Presley

With a couple of exceptions in the second list, most of these songs would be right at home in the soundtrack of a movie set in 1973 or so. That’s not the direction I’d have chosen for matchmaking with a song like “Spinning Wheel”, but hey, that’s why it’s the Genius and I’m not. Happy Friday!

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