Six Degrees of Su-Su-Sudio: Using Pandora as Musical Gaydar

At Pandora Internet Radio, they have a system called the Music Genome Project. This is a robot that maps out the DNA of music, and then finds songs that have similar DNA for you to enjoy. If you didn't go to school, think of it like a matchmaker in a room full of cousins. Most people use it so the robot will create a radio station based around their favorite song. Today, I'm using it to discover what happens if Phil Collins's song "Sussudio" was allowed to breed. I will tell the robot that I enjoy "Sussudio," which is already quite dangerous, then see what song it spits out to please me. I will then take that song and create a radio station based on it. And so on. If you're confused, imagine stepping into alternate dimensions where Phil Collins won World War II or was born to fish parents, only on the radio. This experiment may shock you. Your favorite song might be genetically linked directly or indirectly to "Sussudio." We're all about to see how thin a line we're all walking between enjoying catchy music and having a family of dicks hibernating in our mouths. Explaining the Su-Su-Suck System The Music Genome Project categorizes songs via hundreds of short text descriptions like "repetitive harmonies" or "going apeshit on a saxophone." It's like reading the phone book if everyone were named by jazzy Native Americans. That's why I've developed the Su-Su-Suck System to quickly and visually identify the lameness of a song. I'll explain from the top clockwise. 1. Skateboarding Teddy Bear Rating This rates how well the song works as the soundtrack to a picture of a teddy bear riding a skateboard for drug awareness. This might seem paradoxical at first, but if a bear can skateboard or if squirrels can climb into a stack and drive a car to your song, it probably sucks. 2. Muzak Rating Do they play your song in department stores and elevators? That's because if you play your song with a flute, it can be used to medically sedate the public in a way that still leaves their meat edible.

3. Commando Rating If someone had 15 seconds to tell an audience about an exciting summer blockbuster, would your song help them do it? That's because your song also tells the lizard part of our brains to kill. 4. Gay Porn Rating Sorry, I meant for there to be a picture of gay pornography here, but the best I could find was Freddie Mercury in chain mail from the movie Commando. I had Google Smart Search on, and it was smart enough to know that if I saw two actual guys doing it, I would spend the rest of the day praying these feelings stop feeling so right and crying into the dick hole I was fucking in a gorilla suit. 5. Astley Rating This simply measures how well your song works as a backdrop for some guy dancing like a goofy asshole. To begin the experiment, I told Pandora to build a radio station based around my favorite song, "Sussudio," by Phil Collins. Somewhere in Phil Collins's mouth, a dark penis stirred, sensing the forces I'd called upon. Snakes surged out of my computer as Pandora created an electronic DJ capable of a "Sussudio"-based playlist-- Drive Time Zola was born. He is Hitler's finest Phil Collins fan, in the body of his favorite robot, weekdays from 6 to 9 a.m. Degree #1: "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood Drive Time Zola's first pick was "Relax." Its robot brain thought the "groove based tonality" and "repetitive melodic phrasing" were a close match to Phil Collins's song about tongue abuse. I actually think it had more to do with the fact that "Relax" starts out with these exact lyrics: Mahaha, hiya Give it to me one time now Yeah, whoa, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho Well, now; Next to "Sussudio," it sounded like two babies were fighting over the judges' decision in a suck contest. It lowered the property value of my ears so much that now I can't hear lobster. For my sanity, and my safety, I pressed pause before the part of the song where Frankie Goes to Hollywood screams, "Hit me hit me hit me hit me with your laser beam! Laser beam me!" I was working with a robot intelligence that takes that kind of command seriously, and the last thing I needed was a phaser fight in my computer while all these homosexual sonic waves were holding a protest march. Because phonically, that's the only way to describe what was happening. I told Drive Time Zola to erase his memory banks and then create a station based around my favorite song, "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. He sent an electronic signal telling every appliance in my home to laugh at me before he obeyed.

Degree #2: "Tarzan Boy" by Baltimora I think there must have been some "Sussudio" left in Drive Time Zola's short-term memory, because he picked a song whose main lyric is "OwowowowowowawowowowoWOWO." According to Pandora, "Tarzan Boy" features "a vocal-centric aesthetic" that makes it a close match to Frankie Goes to Hollywood. I also found that both songs can be used to pump up the crowd at a balls touchin' rally. It's too early to say for sure at just the second degree of "Sussudio," but it seems like going back in time to invent Phil Collins at the dawn of music would be a good way to destroy all happiness as we know it. I ordered Drive Time Zola to wipe his memory clean and create a radio station built around my favorite song, "Tarzan Boy." He asked me 243 times if I was sure before complying. Degree #3: "Wanna Be Startin' Something" by Michael Jackson Wait, one of Michael's best songs is only three degrees of separation from "Sussudio"? That's probably what killed him. Speaking as a Michael Jackson fan, that's like recognizing your parents' voices on the other side of a glory hole. This is the worst news I've received since I learned what a vaginal suppository was from my box of jellybeans. I think my simple human brain might have spotted how this complicated song DNA-mapping used by the Music Genome Project works. We've gone from "Su-Su-Sudio" to "Mahaha, hiya" to "OwowowowowowawowowowoWOWO" to "MammasaymammasawmamaMOOsah!" I predict the next song will be made up entirely of incoherent gibberish. Like maybe "Informer" or "La Bamba." When I reset Drive Time Zola's memory bank, his default favorite song was already set to "Wanna Be Startin' Something," so I didn't have to give him any orders. Degree #4: "I Like Boys" by Missing Persons No bullshit, this musical AI went straight from Michael Jackson to some song called "I Like Boys." Hey, robot, that's fucked up. He's barely been in the ground a month! Plus, nice joke. Did your sense of humor chip come out of a Spuds Mackenzie calculator watch? I told Drive Time Zola to start a radio station based on "I Like Boys," some nonsense song that sounds like Molly Shannon being kidnapped and still trying to perform a Dog Show skit. He complimented me on my explaining ability and proceeded.

Degree #5: "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley Pandora describes this song as having "danceable grooves" and "repetitive melodic phrasing." I describe it as what happens when Wally Cleaver fucks a trumpet and teaches their kid to honk. Let this be a lesson to future generations: don't tell artificial intelligences living inside your radio that you like songs about liking boys. Even if you do. To a robot, that's like saying "Search parameter: butthole, subroutine: put it in my mouth and ears." Drive Time Zola seemed happy when I pushed stop and reset his memory banks. Then I told him to make a radio station based on my favorite song and that it was "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley. Drive Time Zola knows now why I cry, but it's something he can never do. Degree #6: "Sussudio" by Phil Collins Holy fucking shit. According to the most sophisticated music DNA-mapping software on the Earth Internet, if you go six degrees away from Phil Collins, it's Phil Collins. I can't even begin to describe how mathematically terrifying and impossible that is, but if I had to try, I'd say it's like the number flerp getting raped by an eight. "Sussudio" is a bear that's tasted man-- if you try to run away from it, it circles around and waits for you. "Sussudio" will burst through your front door and then appear in your mirror when you lock yourself in the bathroom. I started writing this article because I thought it would help bring awareness to the fact that Phil Collins brushes his teeth with body lice shampoo. But now I'm genuinely scared. Not only because the number of dicks in Phil Collins's mouth outnumbers our nation's domestically deployed military, but because no matter what music we ever listen to, it's at best only three songs away from "Sussudio."