Automatic playlist generation based on tracking user’s listening habits

Abstract

Algorithms for automatic playlist generation solve the problem of tedious and time consuming manual selection of musical playlists. These algorithms generate playlists according to the user’s music preferences of the moment. The user describes his preferences either by manually inputting a couple of example songs, or by defining constraints for the choice of music. The approaches to automatic playlist generation up to now were based on examining the metadata attached to the music pieces. Some of them took also the listening history into account. But anyway, a heavy accent has been put on the metadata, while the listening history, if it was used at all, had a minor role. Missings and errors in metadata frequently appear, especially when the music is acquired from the Internet. When the metadata is missing or wrong, the approaches proposed so far cannot work. Besides, entering constraints for the playlist generation can be a difficult activity. In our approach we ignored the metadata and focused on examining the listening habits. We developed two simple algorithms that track the listening habits and form a listener model—a profile of listening habits. The listener model is then used for automatic playlist generation. We developed a simple media player which tracks the listening habits and generates playlists according to the listener model. We tried the solution with a group of users. The experiment was not a successful one, but it threw some new light on the relationship between the listening habits and playlist generation.

Appendix. A questionnaire example

Questionnaire

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This questionnaire is about your listening habits. It is written as a short story in which you have to fill the gaps. The gaps are marked with ??????. Please replace them with what you think there should stand, and send the filled questionnaire to the address aandreja@dico.unimi.it

Here goes:

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... and so, one day, you saw an advertisement on the Internet about a fabulous new media player which can adjust to your personal taste and generate the playlists automatically for you. Good grace!—you said, this can’t be true! So you downloaded the player, just to see if what was said is true. Of course, in the user guide you saw also hat it takes some time for the player to “get in pace” with your tastes and moods. So, patiently, you listened to some of your preferred music for several days. Finally, after a week or so, you decided to try the thing out. You entered manually one piece. It was

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Celine Dion—All By Myself

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and afterwards, you pressed the red button. Instantly, the list was filled with some other pieces. The generated list consisted of the following pieces:

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Celine Dion—All By Myself

Alanis Morissette—Creep—radiohead cover live

Skin—Trouble With Me

Alanis Morissette—Question (Tricky Feat. Alanis)

Marina Rei—I miei complimenti

Skin—As Long As Thats True

Alanis Morissette—11—There Are Worse Things I Could Do

Beatles Cover—Alanis Morrissette—Dear Prudence

mtv unplugged—king of pain

Skin—Lost Without You

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Immediately after, a dialog box appeared on the screen, asking you to give a mark from 0 to 10 to the generated playlist (0-disgusting, 10-excellent, other marks gradually fill this gap) in order to help it improve its working. Ok. You gave the mark ??????.

In the manual you saw that pressing the red button repeatedly you will get different playlists (on the basis of your hint songs, of course). So you pressed the red button again. The new list was:

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Etta James—You Can Leave Your Hat On

Alanis Morissette—Forgive me love

Marina Rei—I miei complimenti

Drift Away—Alanis Morissette, Tom Petty, Ringo Starr & Steven Tyler

Celine Dion—All By Myself

Alanis Morissette—king of intimidation

Copia di Subsonica & Antonella Ruggero—Per Un Ora d’Amore

Alanis Morissette—Question (Tricky Feat. Alanis)

Alanis Morissette—Purgatorying

Alanis—Simple Together

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A dialog box appeared again on the screen, asking you to give a mark from 0 to 10, so you gave the mark ??????.

You decided to press the button repeatedly until you see all the possibilities. The next list was:

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Mina—AudioTrack 02

Mina—Ancora ancora ancora

mtv unplugged—king of pain

4 Non Blondes—Morphine and Chocolate

Copia di Subsonica & Antonella Ruggero—Per Un Ora d’Amore

Etta James—You Can Leave Your Hat On

Loredana Bert—Sei bellissima

Marina Rei—I miei complimenti

Ozzy Osbourne—Goodbye To Romance

Paola Turci—Mani giunte

Celine Dion—All By Myself

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You gave the mark ?????? to this list. “Let’s try something different now”—you said. So you deleted the playlist and entered manually a new piece.

It was:

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Smackwater jack

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You pressed the red button, and the list filled with the following pieces:

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Smackwater jack

JOPLIN Janis—Get It While You Can

4 Non Blondes—What’s Up (Piano Version)

Gamma Ray—The Silence

Mia Martini—Minuetto

Copia di Subsonica & Antonella Ruggero—Per Un Ora d’Amore

Marina Rei—I miei complimenti

Skin—Trashed

Tori Amos—Northern Lad

Skin—Burnt Like You

Skin—I’ll Try

Drift Away—Alanis Morissette, Tom Petty, Ringo Starr & Steven Tyler-

Ozzy Osbourne—Goodbye To Romance

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In the dialog box you entered the following mark: ??????.

You subsequently pressed the red button, and the list was different.

It was:

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Smackwater jack

Skin—Trashed

Tori Amos—Northern Lad

Alanis Morissette—Forgive me love

Copia di Subsonica & Antonella Ruggero—Per Un Ora d’Amore

Alanis Morissette—Unprodigal Daughter

Michael Kiske—Always

mtv unplugged—king of pain

Alanis—Simple Together

Alanis Morissette—Offer

Alanis Morissette—Purgatorying

Alanis Morissette—Sorry To Myself

Skin—Dont Let Me Down

Skin—Burnt Like You

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The mark that you gave to this list was: ??????.

After that you pressed the red button one more time, and you got the following list:

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Alanis Morissette—Sorry To Myself

Smackwater jack

Alanis—Simple Together

Alanis Morissette—Unprodigal Daughter

Alanis Morissette—Offer

Tori Amos—Northern Lad

Michael Kiske—Always

Alanis Morissette—Purgatorying

Skin—Trashed

Alanis Morissette—Still (Dogma)

Mia Martini—Minuetto

Alanis Morissette—king of intimidation

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You marked this list with: ??????.

After all this you said: “What a ?????? program!”

(In the terms of that dialog box, your comment would be translated to the mark ??????).

End of the story.