Using LLMs To Recommend Music Works Better Than I Expected

Finding new music to listen to is something I'm always keen on. Spotify and Apple Music, despite having so much data on what I listen to, really suck at it. My favourite radio station, 3RRR, does a little better with their album of the week and soundscape. Ditto Triple J for the young people's usic. Then there's trusty record labels like Sub Pop and Matador that keep finding interesting new artists for me to listen to.

But it's 2025 and everyone's losing their minds over LLM/AI chatbots - what do they know about music? It turns out, quite a lot!

As a subscriber to Kagi's Professional plan, I get access to multiple LLMs via the Assistant feature. I gave each model a simple prompt:

Here are 400 albums I own - going by this list do you have any suggestions for music made after 2010 I should listen to?

Along with a list of every album I own (full list here if you're interested):

Here's what each of the LLMs suggested:

GPT 4o mini

• Tame Impala - Currents (2015)
• Arctic Monkeys - AM (2013)
• The War on Drugs - A Deeper Understanding (2017)
• St. Vincent - Masseduction (2017)
• Kendrick Lamar - DAMN. (2017)
• Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher (2020)
• IDLES - Joy as an Act of Resistance (2018)
• King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Nonagon Infinity (2016)
• Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell (2015)
• The 1975 - A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships (2018)

Mistral Medium

• Arctic Monkeys - AM (2013)
• Tame Impala - Currents (2015)
• The War on Drugs - Lost in the Dream (2014)
• Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit (2015)
• Daft Punk - Random Access Memories (2013)
• Flying Lotus - You're Dead! (2014)
• Flume - Flume (2012)
• Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly (2015)
• Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 2 (2014)
• Danny Brown - Atrocity Exhibition (2016)
• FKA twigs - LP1 (2014)
• St. Vincent - Masseduction (2017)
• King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Nonagon Infinity (2016)

Gemini 2.5 Pro

• Dinosaur Jr. - Sweep It Into Space (2021)
• Pixies - Head Carrier (2016)
• Parquet Courts - Wide Awake! (2018)
• Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel (2019)
• IDLES - Joy as an Act of Resistance (2018)
• Savages - Adore Life (2016)
• LCD Soundsystem - American Dream (2017)
• Caribou - Suddenly (2020)
• Jamie xx - In Colour (2015)
• Against All Logic - 2012 - 2017 (2018)
• Tame Impala - Lonerism (2012) & Currents (2015)
• King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Nonagon Infinity (2016) & Infest the Rats' Nest (2019)
• Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit (2015)
• Gang of Youths - Go Farther in Lightness (2017)
• The Chats - High Risk Behaviour (2020)
• Run The Jewels - RTJ4 (2020)
• Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) & DAMN. (2017)
• A Tribe Called Quest - We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service (2016)

Llama 4 Maverick

• Arctic Monkeys - AM (2013)
• CHVRCHES - The Bones of What You Believe (2013)
• Haim - Women in Music Pt. III (2020)
• Tame Impala - Slow Rush (2020)
• Billie Eilish - When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019)
• Fontaines D.C. - A Hero's Death (2020)
• Glass Animals - Dreamland (2020)
• Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers (2022)
• The 1975 - Being Funny in a Foreign Language (2022)

Qwen 3 256B (reasoning)

• Arctic Monkeys - AM (2013)
• Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold (2012)
• IDLES - Joy as an Act of Resistance (2018)
• Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel (2019)
• CHVRCHES - The Bones of What You Believe (2013)
• Flume - Flume (2012)
• Röyksopp - Senior (2010)
• Flying Lotus - Until the Quiet Comes (2012)
• The Menzingers - On the Impossible Past (2012)
• PUP - PUP (2014)
• Mastodon - The Hunter (2011)
• Tame Impala - Currents (2015)
• Unknown Mortal Orchestra - II (2013)
• King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Fishing for Fishies (2019)
• St. Vincent - Masseduction (2017)
• Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress (2015)
• Bon Iver - 22, A Million (2016)
• Bicep - Bicep (2017)
• Sleater-Kinney - The Center Won’t Hold (2019)
• Wolfgang Flür - Elastic Wang (2015)

DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Llama-70B

• Arctic Monkeys - The Car (2022)
• IDLES - Ultra Mono (2020)
• Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel (2019)
• King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - K.G. (2020)
• Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher (2020)
• Amyl and the Sniffers - Comfort to Me (2021)
• The Black Keys - Dropout Boogie (2022)
• Royal Blood - Typhoons (2021)
• Tame Impala - Slow Rush (2020)
• Unknown Mortal Orchestra - V (2023)
• King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Butterfly 3000 (2021)
• Greta Van Fleet - Anthem of the Peaceful Army (2018)
• Rival Sons - Feral Roots (2019)
• Royal Blood - Back to the Club (2023)
• Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia (2020)
• The Avalanches - We Will Always Love You (2020)
• Caribou - Suddenly (2020)

Grok 3 Mini

• Tame Impala - Currents (2015)
• St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION (2017)
• IDLES - Joy as an Act of Resistance (2018)
• Queens of the Stone Age - Villains (2017)
• King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Laminated Denim (2022)
• Fontaines D.C. - A Hero's Death (2020)
• The Avalanches - We Will Always Love You (2020)
• The Horrors - Luminous (2014)

Meta AI

• Tame Impala - Slow Rush - 2020
• Arctic Monkeys - Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino - 2018
• Unknown Mortal Orchestra - V - 2023
• Foals - Life is Yours - 2022
• Glass Animals - Dreamland - 2020
• Fontaines D.C. - Skinty Fia - 2022
• Wet Leg - Wet Leg - 2022
• Arlo Parks - Collapsed in Sunbeams - 2021
• Yard Act - The Overload - 2022
• The Murder Capital - When I Have Fears - 2023

Claude Sonnet 4

• Caribou - Our Love (2014)
• Caribou - Suddenly (2020)
• Four Tet - New Energy (2017)
• LCD Soundsystem - American Dream (2017)
• Disclosure - Settle (2013)
• Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel (2019)
• Fontaines D.C. - Skinty Fia (2022)
• Idles - Joy as an Act of Resistance (2018)
• Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg (2021)
• Shame - Songs of Praise (2018)
• Sleaford Mods - Eton Alive (2019)
• Ty Segall - Manipulator (2014)
• Osees - Orc (2017)
• Thee Oh Sees - Floating Coffin (2013)
• Pond - Man It Feels Like Space Again (2015)
• Psychedelic Porn Crumpets - High Visceral, Pt. 1 (2016)
• Mild High Club - Skiptracing (2016)
• Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit (2015)
• Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Hope Downs (2018)
• Stella Donnelly - Beware of the Dogs (2019)

Not bad, not bad at all. I particularly like Claude's suggestions of Dry Cleaning and Thee Oh Sees/Osees, which I have listened to plenty and really enjoy, I just don't own them on CD so it didn't know not to tell me about it.

There's a couple of albums mentioned multiple times by different LLMs - the most common ones were, in order of most mentioned:

1. Tame Impala - Currents
2. Arctic Monkeys - AM
3. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Nonagon Infinity
4. St. Vincent - Masseduction
5. IDLES - Joy as an Act of Resistance
6. Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel
7. Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher
8. The War on Drugs - A Deeper Understanding
9. Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
10. CHVRCHES - The Bones of What You Believe
11. Parquet Courts - Wide Awake!
12. Caribou - Suddenly
13. Glass Animals - Dreamland
14. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - V

I've listened to a couple of these before, like Currents, Masseduction and Courtnet Barnett and I do like em, I just forgot they exist! Great suggestions all around and I will probably do this again with different prompts like - albums released in the last 5 years, albums from the 1980s and so on. Let's just ignore the amount of energy required to give me this info...