iTunes 8 has several new features, including Genius. Highlight a song and click the Genius button, and a playlist is instantly generated from your library of other songs that relate to your selection. And if you open the Genius sidebar (the button in the far right bottom corner), you’ll see some album and song recommendations based on your selection.

According to Apple, as you use your library, Genius learns your preferences and how you relate songs. And when you update Genius (under the “Advanced” menu), that information is added anonymously to that of everyone else who updated. This accumulated data allows the iTunes store to make increasingly intelligent recommendations for music purchase.

I have admittedly very eccentric and eclectic musical tastes, so I decided to give this fledgling feature a workout. To keep things simple, I didn’t try any classical selections. I’ve seen the same classical work listed so many different ways in iTunes, that I wasn’t sure anything would match up — yet.

The Song Remains the Same 

I started with something fairly popular — “The Song Remains the Same,” by Led Zeppelin. Within my own library, iTunes created a Genius playlist of 25 tunes. The top five being:

• "The Real Me" — The Who
• "Midnight Rambler" — Rolling Stones
• "Empty Pages" — Traffic
• "(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" — Elvis Costello

The rest of the playlist was filled out with tracks from Jimi Hendrix, the Pretenders, Blind Faith, Uriah Heep, The Cult and the Moody Blues.

OK, not bad. So I opened the Genius Sidebar to the iTunes store. It recommended two Led Zeppelin albums I didn’t have, five of the most popular Zep tunes that were missing from my library, and then some other songs by related artists: "Machine Head' (Deep Purple), 'Monkey Man" (Rolling Stones), "Cross-Eyed Mary" (Jethro Tull), and "Mean Street" (Van Halen).

Here Comes Trouble

So far, so good. I then tried a song by another popular group whose music is not available on iTunes, but is in my library — “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles.

A window popped open.

“Genius is unavailable for the song “Here Comes the Sun”"

So Genius had no luck matching the year of release, or the genre, or any other piece of metadata attached to the song? Hmmmm.

I then opened the Genius Sidebar.

“Genius sidebar could not find matches for your specific selection, but here are the Top Songs and Albums in the iTunes store.”

And there were a list of songs by Pink, Taylor Swift, T.I., Rihanna, Katy Perry, and Jay-Z. Decidedly not helpful.

Accept no substitutes

I tried other groups, and got pretty much the same results. If it was in the iTunes store, then Genius could create a playlist. If not, then it couldn't. And then something odd happened.

I picked a song by an obscure group that I had a lot of related material for Genius to choose from — “Another Time, Another World” by the Chantelles, a mid-60’s British girl group. Now the Chantelles have been featured on three volumes “Dream Babes,” a compilation series from RPM. Selections from all eight volumes are in my iTunes library. I also have a smart playlist titled “Dream Babes” that pulls up only girl group and female solo artists from 1964-1969. A keyword in the comments fields snags not only the tracks from the “Dream Babes” series, but those by artists not included on the discs, such as Lulu and Petula Clark, and other compilations as well.

I clicked the Genius button and a window popped open.

“Genius is unavailable for “Another Time, Another World” “ (!)

When I opened the Genius Sidebar, however, it did recommend “The Best of the Chantels” as well as five tracks that I didn’t already have. Of course, that was the American R&B group the Chantels, rather than the UK's Chantelles. Good thing I checked the spelling before I started buying tracks!

I spot-checked a few other obscure artists. Sure enough, if the name was close to that of another artist in iTunes, Genius would consider it a valid recommendation. For popular artists, this didn't seem to happen. But if you're looking for someone a little off the beaten path, I'd recommend checking carefully to make sure Genius is matching apples to apples.

On the whole, when Genius worked, it worked fine. But for me, it didn't always work.

Still, this is a brand new system. I’ll revisit these same tracks in a few months after the database has grown a bit, and see if there’s any difference in the results.