6 Degrees of Black Sabbath

[labs.echonest.com] http://labs.echonest.com/SixDegrees/index
Where did they get this idea?

Boooooooooooo.

And I understand about 2% of what is going on over at that site.

It's interesting I guess but it's a very loose definition of linked.

Take Black Sabbath to GBH as a for example. We have 6 member steps. They have a member > his brother > his band > 3 shared member steps > someone having done a cover version of a GBH track.

Interesting but, in all honesty, not very descriptive. That means I can 'link' directly to anyone by covering their song.

It's just a different way of doing things. Far less rigorous, but more easily imported from a third-party database (MusicBrainz, in this case).

That said, they apparently rank the "strength" of each kind of connection, and if you look for a connection between two artists, it will give you the strongest one, not necessarily the shortest one. For instance, Björk and Eric Whitacre are each 1 step from E. E. Cummings, since they each used his poems as lyrics, but the strongest link between the two (according to the site) is 6 steps long.

[labs.echonest.com] http://labs.echonest.com/SixDegrees/faq.html

It's interesting. It looks like it's all based on MusicBrainz relationship types. It would be nice if you could choose which relationship types to include or exclude.

I find the Covers Project interesting too: [www.bandtoband.com] http://www.bandtoband.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2705