Music covers are interesting

For some reason I'm drawn to music covers.  I like to hear new versions of the same song be different artists and compare styles and interpretations.  I have another blog post from a long time ago that mentions an idea for a mp3 player plugin that would connect to SecondHandSongs to query their database of song covers and provide information on the current song and related covers if any.

Well, I actually have renewed the desire for such a plugin and have a few links of resources to help be get started on this:

• http://www.secondhandcongs.com (of course)
• http://code.google.com/p/rhythmtoweb/
• http://live.gnome.org/RhythmboxPlugins/ThirdParty
• http://live.gnome.org/RhythmboxPlugins/WritingGuide
• http://www.grooveshark.com
• http://apidocs.tinysong.com/

My current idea is to ping SecondHandSongs with the song info and retrieve:
1. if this is a cover
2. if this is an original, with other artists covering it
3. if this is not found at all in their database

for 1 and 2, I'll get the list of all covers and artists, and then query TinySong.com to see if they have that song in their database.  If so, they will provide a URL to listen to that song in a browser.

So you can listen to a song and say, "Hmm, I wonder if anyone has redone this song...", then right click on it, or something, and choose "Find Song Cover Info...", and then a list of songs and artists get displayed, and when you click on any one of them, it pauses your current music player, launches a web browser with the URL for that song cover and you get to listen to it right there.

Coolness.