Spizzenergi and Creed: Not That Far Apart

July 14, 2016 12:19 PM

Six Degrees of Music Separation is a variation on the ever-popular "Six Degrees" game/meme that works out connections between bands via cover versions of songs, mostly. Includes obscure recording artists such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
posted by Halloween Jack (42 comments total)

Creed and Creed Taylor: Not The Same Thing
posted by crazy_yeti at 12:27 PM on July 14, 2016

Jimmy Carter connects to Barack Obama through, Lil Wayne, Drake, and Coldplay... arc of history, and all that.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:27 PM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ooops, pilot error - sorry!
posted by crazy_yeti at 12:33 PM on July 14, 2016

Pretty impressive - although not *too* surprising that connections can be made in so few steps, considering the length of some recording careers and the huuuuuuge number of covers and samples.

I tried a few combos -- all came back with 3 degrees -- but then I managed a 4-degree connection with Gene Krupa and Meghan Trainor.
posted by davidmsc at 12:33 PM on July 14, 2016

Sampling basically means every single band on earth can connect through Dr. Dre.
posted by lumpenprole at 12:35 PM on July 14, 2016

G.G. Allin to Pat Boone in three steps!
posted by Crane Shot at 12:37 PM on July 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

There are six degrees between Raffi and Teenage Jesus and The Jerks.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:38 PM on July 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Ok, so that makes Obama's Bacon-Erdos-Sabbath number somewhere between 6 and infinity, since his Bacon number is 2 and his Sabbath number is 3 (at least per this method) and I could probably dig deep and come up with some way to get a Erdos number but don't really want to dedicate myself to the project of looking up the academic histories of everyone who's ever written a speech for him. This random blog comment says it's 8, so let's call it 13 all told, which isn't bad for someone who is not a professional actor, musician, or mathematician.
posted by Copronymus at 12:42 PM on July 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Beyoncé covered John Freeman Young, who was also covered by Merzbow.

Didn't expect that.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 12:44 PM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Gorgoroth and Andrae Crouch: Five steps. Nearly got 'em!
posted by mittens at 12:47 PM on July 14, 2016

This may or may not help his Erdos number, but Obama has published in medical journals several times.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:48 PM on July 14, 2016

If you plug in a Canadian folk singer other than Gordon Lightfoot, you have about a 75% chance of stumping it. This seems to be a giant gap in it's database, as it believes Stan Rogers has been covered twice, Stompin Tom Connors has been covered once, Ron Hynes has never been covered, James Keelaghan has never been covered (and has covered only one song himself), and the following artists do not exist: JP Cormier, Nathan Rogers, Garnet Rogers, Laura Smith, The Once, The Irish Descendents....

Presumably music needs it's own version of IMDB before this can actually work.

But it would be neat if it did work.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:02 PM on July 14, 2016

This is similar to a game I've been playing with a my fellow music geek friends for a couple of years now. Ours is less focused on cover songs and more about direct collaborations and changing/common band members.
Relying on samples used in hip hop songs almost makes it too easy.
posted by rocket88 at 1:03 PM on July 14, 2016

Roscoe Holcomb is kicking this game's ass too.
posted by ernielundquist at 1:06 PM on July 14, 2016

Tried to connect G.G. Allin and Glenn Branca and the site said it didn't have Branca in the database. Therefore, I win.
posted by jscalzi at 1:08 PM on July 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

The question on my mind: do both Clinton and Obama have Bacon/Erdos/Sabbath numbers, and if so, what are they?
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 1:08 PM on July 14, 2016

Lawrence Welk to the Sex Pistols. I give up.
posted by Naberius at 1:22 PM on July 14, 2016

I broke it going the other way. It says XTC is connected to The Residents by way of Primus.

WRONG.

Andy Partridge sang lead vocals on "Margaret Freeman" off The Commercial Album

I win.
posted by SansPoint at 1:23 PM on July 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

Samples really do make it too easy. Muslimgauze (a fairly obscure experimental artist) allegedly sampled James Brown on an early track, which means he's connected to pretty much everyone.

I did manage to stump it with Hot Snakes and Lovesliescrushing (a great ambient / shoegazer-goth / blissed-out-noise act that you should check out).
posted by escape from the potato planet at 1:28 PM on July 14, 2016

I don't think sampling counts as a true Sabbath number, but I think I have the same degrees of who sampled separation as Ms. Clinton (second-rate viola for a P.D.Q. Bach concert was the highlight of my musical career.)
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 1:30 PM on July 14, 2016

The obvious strategy is people who didn't do a lot of covers, but their artist database is kind of weird. I keep putting in people who had major label releases and they're not there, but some super indie things I never heard of are.

The game is rigged.
posted by bongo_x at 1:34 PM on July 14, 2016

In all seriousness, I tried something similar to this by hand a long time ago, tracking all the links between my favorite bands and artists on a giant chart. I wish I still had the file with all the links.

One of the weirdest ones I found: John S. Hall, the vocalist for King Missile worked as an attorney and had a private practice doing entertainment law. One of his clients was Cathal Coughlan, singer for Microdisney, The Fatima Mansions, and a brilliant solo artist in his own right.
posted by SansPoint at 1:37 PM on July 14, 2016

Predicted that Rick Rubin would pretty much connect everybody. The N=10 sample I tried confirmed.
posted by General Malaise at 1:38 PM on July 14, 2016

CPE Bach is a black hole who doesn't even connect to his dad, much less PDQ Bach. He is in there for some reason though.
posted by mattamatic at 1:45 PM on July 14, 2016

Not only is the database patchy in places (which is to be expected), it's also downright inaccurate. For example, it tells me that Charles Manson "sampled" the Beatles, and that the Winstons "sampled" two other songs on "Amen Brother". Maybe they borrowed elements from prior work, if you want to call that "sampling"...but that's so subjective and unprovable as to be meaningless.

(This does make me want to hear Manson's trap remix of "Helter Skelter", but that's neither here nor there.)

I thought I'd cleverly trick it with Walter Carlos and Wendy Carlos, but it was too smart for me.

I think the best I've done so far is 4 degrees of separation, with Operation Ivy / Windy & Carl, Karlheinz Stockhausen / ABBA, and Kid Rock / Lazerhawk (among others).
posted by escape from the potato planet at 2:00 PM on July 14, 2016

Yeah, there are some weird lacunae in this. Glenn Branca has worked with Thurston Moore, among others, which would make connecting him easy.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:01 PM on July 14, 2016

It relies too much on covers. It connects The Box Tops to Big Star by way of Box Tops-->Jeff Buckley-->The Band-->Big Star, despite Alex Chilton being in both groups.
posted by rocket88 at 2:12 PM on July 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Does anyone recall a website where it asks you to think of a person, then asks yes/no questions until it guesses who?
posted by adept256 at 2:42 PM on July 14, 2016

The longest chain I've found just by goofing around is actually Bill Clinton to Hillary Clinton, which I found amusing.
posted by Copronymus at 2:44 PM on July 14, 2016

Actually, I think if you go over 6 it just fails. I've tried some combinations that can each reach a common mid-point, but if you put them both in it tells you it can't do it. And I had such high hopes for you, minor Eurovision act and Dr. Demento.
posted by Copronymus at 2:52 PM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Only three degrees of separation between Amy Grant and Dweezil Zappa, Ministry or N.W.A. It's a strange world.
posted by vverse23 at 2:59 PM on July 14, 2016

From music both actually in my library and in its database, I beat it trying to connect Klint to Zakir Hussein.
posted by sysinfo at 3:03 PM on July 14, 2016

Does anyone recall a website where it asks you to think of a person, then asks yes/no questions until it guesses who?

That sounds a lot like Akinator.
posted by GenericUser at 3:35 PM on July 14, 2016

Lawrence Welk to the Sex Pistols

The first degree connects Lawrence Welk to Frank Sinatra via a Welk cover of "Young at Heart."

That suggests to me a pretty direct route to the Sex Pistols via Sid's cover of "My Way," but the reported route is much more obscure. (Obscure to me, anyway. Maybe Richard "Groove" Holmes and Type 4 are household names in households other than mine.)

I'm wondering how it selects which path to take.
posted by layceepee at 3:45 PM on July 14, 2016

I gotta say, I didn't think it would be able to do Tool --- EXID.
posted by signal at 4:01 PM on July 14, 2016

Beat it! So it's easy enough to find artists it doesn't know, but the trick of course is to find ones it actually knows but has very few connections for. Fizzarum is one and Pierre Schaeffer is another.
posted by juv3nal at 4:40 PM on July 14, 2016

" Lawrence Welk to the Sex Pistols. I give up.
posted by Naberius at 4:22 AM on July 15 [+] [!] "

Surely Lawrence Welk >Frank Sinatra >Sid Vicious (My Way cover) > Sex Pistols? 3° rather than 4.
posted by beige at 4:43 PM on July 14, 2016

The Robyn Hitchcock → Pete Seeger link went amusingly via "Kung Fu Fighting". King Creosote → Robyn Hitchcock goes via Coldplay, so I should really keep quiet about that.
posted by scruss at 7:39 PM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

 → Does anyone recall a website where it asks you to think of a person, then asks yes/no questions until it guesses who?

Guess the Dictator/Sit-Com Character?
posted by scruss at 7:54 PM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

I stumped it with Shirley Collins and Darkspace. It's pretty easy to get a high number if you pick a recent artist that doesn't do many covers or use many samples. It doesn't seem to have much information about who played together.
posted by obvious at 8:48 PM on July 14, 2016

I beat it with Shirley Caesar and Dick Raajimakers.

I win!
posted by droplet at 9:47 PM on July 14, 2016

Richard Strauss to Bernie Sanders

Also Sprach Zarathustra sampled in See Emily Play by David Bowie
Growing Up by Bowie being a cover of Growing up by Bruce Springstein
This land is your land being a cover from Woodie Guthrie
This Land Is Your Land was covered by Bernie Sanders
posted by Hasteur at 5:14 AM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]