Q: New Thread -- Genius is Unavailable for the Song ... (New songs bought ITS)

I have noticed the same thing. Genius has not worked for any songs released in the last year and I have purchased several albums. I think Apple has to look into changing the way they come up with Genius playlists. If it is off of other people's listening habits it isn't quite working. Maybe they should go off purchasing habits or like minded artist. I have Zune software on my computer too and when I want a "quick" way to make a playlist off a current song I use that instead but I rather not since I have an iphone and ipod.

Same issue here. For me it's nothing that was newly released after April 2010. I don't believe this has anything to do with there being insufficient data. I believe the database simply hasn't updated. Not sure why this hasn't become a bigger deal - it's a feature that they tout in some iPhone ads.

I had the same problem and have massive trouble believing that there are not enough playlists for some of these albums.  For me the latest album to work is Swim, by Caribou (released 19 April 2010). Nothing released after April 2010 is working for me with genius.

I get the "Genius is unavailable for the song ..." message for all the following (all bought in iTunes - sometimes whole album, others just a few songs):

The National - High Velvet - released 10 May 2010

The Black Keys - Brothers - 17 May 2010

Dark Night of the Soul - Dangermouse and Sparklehorse - 9 July 2010

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs - 2 August 2010

Maximum Balloon - Maximum Balloon - 10 September 2010

Edwyn Collins - Losing Sleep - 20 September 2010

Mark Ronson & The Business International - Record Collection - 24 September 2010

Belle and Sebastian - Write About Love (Bonus Track Version) - 8 October 2010

Warpaint - The Fool - 22 October 2010

Take That - Progress - 15 November 2010

Lady GaGa - Born This Way (Single) - 11 February 2011

Before that, even obscure albums (eg The Ruby Suns, Fight Softly (1 March 2010)) work fine.  Strangely, genius used to make a playlist for me with the song Bloodbuzz Ohio,

by The National, which I downloaded from the band's website shortly after release (24 March 2010).  But after I bought the whole album High Violet, both the single and the album stopped working. 

I called Apple Support about it and got escalated one step up the chain.  The guy explained that genius works on a combination of local and global information, local being information from my computer, and it needs local information before it can make a playlist.  I asked him if that meant that genius could work for someone else, but not for me, on the same song, and he said yes.  He said I need to just keep playing the songs and updating genius.  Well I bought the Arcade Fire and The National shortly after release and have played them close to 40 times each, and have now even made special playlists to try to train my iTunes to know what I think goes with these songs.  I just can't believe there's not enough local or global information to make a genius playlist with these songs.  It doesn't explain why a song used to work but no longer does.  Plus the suggestion that I need local data before genius will work is not correct.  I just bought Jailbird by Primal Scream (a 1994 release) and before playing it I updated genius.  It then created a genius playlist just fine, despite it never having been played locally. 

Genius has been a big reason I've bought off iTunes rather than going for some kind of subscription service, but I've been waiting for updates for such a long time now and it seems like some bug has frozen it for all songs over about the last year, or Apple has just stopped bothering to update it.  It is frustrating getting unconvincing answers from Apple Support.  If anyone has any of these working, or gets any decent information from Apple Support, please post here.

MacBook Pro 13 inch Oct 2009, iTunes 10.2.1(1), Mac OSX 10.6.7

IMO - I think that the algorithm is broken and they don't have anyone paying attention to it working. They're so busy with world domination, that they don't care when an older feature stops working. I think I'll call Apple Support also to see if it can reach an engineer.

APPLE!!! FIX GENIUS SO WE CAN MAKE PLAYLISTS FOR NEWLY RELEASED

MUSIC!!!!

... i think if we post messages like this enough then they will catch on

this is what you need to do if you want them to see it.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

Need to let them know

http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

Woohoo, it's all working again since my last Genius update - is it working for everyone else too?  Thank you Majella at Apple Support if it was you who got through to the right technicians!

Awsome works for me now.

I know that good amount of people that filled out a feedback report after I posted. Maybe that plus an email to Steve Jobs did the trick

VICTORRRYY ISS OUUURRSS!!!!!!!

Let's hope they update it more than once a year.

It's not working for me for anything released in the last year again now... so clearly it ISN'T being updated more than once a year. It really is poor.

Still not working as i tried it with songs released in 2011 such as foo fighters walk and ham by jay-z and kayne

If I buy a new song (e.g., Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe) Genius data is unavailable, but if I buy an older song that released 18 months ago it works fine.

Have sent an iTunes support request. Will see what they say.