Entertainment For Lively Minds
Amazon recommends
I am from time to time perplexed and / or amused by the things that Amazon recommends to me, because I have bought or rated something else.
I thought that recommending a Kanye West album because I'd rated Bridge Over Troubled Water was a stretch, but tonight I've found that I've been recommended "The Holy Bible (The Definitive Revised (Kindle Edition)) by God" because I've previously rated Joe Boyd's White Bicycles.
I was perplexed by this for a moment, but in a Word inspired flash of inspiration I understood the connection.
It is of course that for some people (but not for me) Richard Thompson is god, hence the connection.
Anyone else care to share bizarre recommendations?
I'd also like to be the first to recommend as the new godhead, Mr Chuck Prophet (nice biblical allusion in the name too).
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Advice:
Don't Let the kids loose on your Amazon account.
My recommendations once included:
The Clash, Anti Nowhere League, Harry Potter, Twilight, Converse Trainers, Anthrax, Twisted Sister, Arcade Fire & Paramore
Not all of the above list were due to purchases by me (can you spot which ones?)
I understand that the Amazon Recommendation engine is based on your own purchases and similarity to others.
But why when you by a single compilation album, does it recommend about 5 others by the same artist?
Or offers a remastered, repackaged or deluxe edition of something you have already bought or own?
Those Amazon people are clever little buggers
though. If I view an artist but don't make any purchases of said artist lo and behold within a week or so I am getting an alert from them that I should consider buying the very album I looked at but refrained from buying. Just to tempt me the album is a whole 49p cheaper as if that is going to sway my decision!!
Chuck Prophet not yet God but certainly a disciple.
The BBC tend to look down on me.
Yeah
no Shaun the Sheep, bastards!
Grandpa in My Pocket...
My Grandpa called me up
He said, "Why don't you ever take me out?
Pick me up in your brand new car
Take the B556 to Potters Bar"
I put on my bingo shoes
We headed straight for the Little Boy Blues
The Mecca was hot, but my Grandpa was not
I've got a Grandpa in my pocket, I said Grandpa
Ya pipe cleaners in the socket
Pipe cleaners in the socket, pipe cleaners in the socket
Buy one Barbie...
I'm constantly having to fix my recommendations or it's a list populated by Bratz dolls or Hector's House DVD box sets that I've bought as gifts. Now it's full of Polish films and children's horror anthology shows from the Seventies.
But what annoys me most - and I've posted about this many times - is the accusatory tone of why something is recommended - 'because you said you owned The Quiet Earth', like you're making it up or something.
Gigs...
...get this with gigs, too. I took some young children to a couple of gigs last year, and received this annoyingly-jaunty e-mail this week:
"We just know you will want to be one of those who wants to know about Olly Murs gigs and to pre-order tickets NOW."
Well, thank you, but I'll pass. Thanks ever so.
Today's Amazon recommendation...
"Yiddish With Dick and Jane"
Out a clear blue sky, that one.