What if you could extend your favourite song… forever?
Well, now you can!
The Eternal Jukebox is a website created by Paul Lamere, who works with music technology and builds music recommenders for Spotify. He created the Eternal Jukebox based on one of his old projects: an infinite version of Gangnam Style.
The Eternal Jukebox allows you to pick any song of your choice (as long as it’s on Spotify). It then sends the song to The Echo Nest (a music data platform), where the song is deconstructed into individual beats. The similar beats in the song are connected together, and when the song plays, there’s a chance for the song to jump from one similar beat to another. In theory, it shouldn’t be noticeable as the beats are similar, but depending on the song, the result differs.
This jumping from beat to beat could continue forever, which then gives you an infinite version of the song.
Accompanying the audio is a circular diagram of the connected beats and the song, unique to each song, and it looks pretty awesome. The color palette of each diagram isn’t random either: it is related to the timbre of the music.
Top Left: Mala Fama by Danna Paola, Top Right: Loba by Shakira, Bottom Left: Livin' La Vida Loca by Ricky Martin, Bottom Right: Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor by Beethoven & Paul Lewis
The circumference of the circle represents the timeline of the song, and the lines in the middle are the connections between similar beats. Each individual color block on the circumference represents a beat, and when you play through a section of the song, an extra layer of color blocks is added onto the circumference, displaying the number of times a certain part has been repeated.
Another feature is that you can ‘fine tune’ the song, which allows you to change features like the number of similar beat connections and the probability of jumping between beats etc. You can also delete specific connections that cut too abruptly by clicking it (when it turns red, it is selected), and pressing ‘delete’. Any changes in tuning or deletions of connections will be saved, so as long as you have the link, you can always come back and re-listen to your edited version of the infinite song.
A warning though: while The Eternal Jukebox works well with most songs, not every song is very self-similar. In that event, you might just get stuck in a loop, like in this example:
Have some fun with The Eternal Jukebox, and create some cool infinite songs! If you have a great one that you would like to share with the community, be sure to leave a link in the comments below.
Sources:
Paul Lamere [@plamere], (n.d.), accessed 17/4/22, https://twitter.com/plamere?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Paul Lamere, 12/11/12, The Infinite Jukebox, https://musicmachinery.com/2012/11/12/the-infinite-jukebox/
Paul Lamere, 26/11/12, Tuning the Infinite Jukebox, https://musicmachinery.com/2012/11/26/tuning-the-infinite-jukebox/