The
Music Genome Project was first conceived by Will Glaser and
Tim Westergren in late 1999. In January 2000, they joined forces with Jon Kraft to found Savage Beast Technologies to bring their idea to market. The Music Genome Project is an effort to "capture the essence of
music at the most fundamental level" using over 450 attributes to describe songs and a complex mathematical
algorithm to organize them. The Music Genome Project is currently made up of 5 sub-genomes: Pop/Rock, Hip-Hop/Electronica, Jazz, World Music, and Classical. Under the direction of
Nolan Gasser and a team of musicological experts, the initial attributes were later refined and extended.