Six Degrees of Black Sabbath

[undyingking]

A fairly self-explanatory web app toy that does the connectivity thing with musical collaborations. Who would have thought that the shortest path from Pink Floyd to Men at Work passed through Roxy Music and Jethro Tull?

It's powered by the excellent MusicBrainz database, which I thoroughly recommend in its own right.

So far, after a handful of queries, the longest shortest chain I've found is 16, from the aforementioned Floyd to The Knife (which goes via Motorhead...). But I'm sure you can do much better.

The author's interesting (to me, at least) blog post about it is here.

Comments

[example22.livejournal.com]

Big Bopper to Mika, in 27 steps...

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

That's shockingly high!

And I thought I'd beaten the system by finding an 11-step one (Faster Pussycat to The Divine Comedy)!

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

Damn, I thought I was doing well with Frazier Chorus to XTC in 19 steps... there goes my weekend.

[gbsteve.livejournal.com]

Florence and the Machine to Mozart is a fun trip, if not that long.

Mika to Roberto Zanetti is 30 steps. I'll stop now.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

About 2/3 of my attempts to beat this score go via Pigface. Who?! I'm going to go and listen to them now...

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

...OK, that was a mistake. :-/

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the warning, I had also been wondering.

[gbsteve.livejournal.com]

But Duane Denison, member of Pigface, was the brilliant guitarist in Jesus Lizard. Well, if you don't like the classics ...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Loads of great people have been in it, they just seem to have made the most unholy racket at the time. Fun if you were there, no doubt...

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

Mika to Mike Batt, 26 steps. Mika to The Wombles, 19 steps via Mike Batt.
Hmm...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Hmm indeed; that would seem to cast a little doubt upon the whole algorithm. You should drop him a line of complaint.

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

Bah! Stoopid database has neither Bernard Cribbins nor Tom Lehrer! (The Sweet to the Scissor Sisters is 17 steps by the way, but others have already whupped that as a chain)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

They're both in the database, but neither has any relationships defined. Clearly their collaborations, if any existed, have not yet been logged...

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

Oh, OK. Fair enough!

[ninthcouncil.livejournal.com]

I hit 16 on my first attempt - The Fall to Kajagoogoo - which made me feel kind of dirty, so I had to stop :)