Metadata is everything

I’ve been teaching one of my customers the fundamentals of Power BI this past week, so maybe I’m just hypersensitized to data issues right now, but I saw this and thought it was humorous. If your data isn’t clean, you’ll get really “interesting” results to your queries.

I love the music subscription offering that we have in the service formerly known as Zune: it’s one of the best kept “secrets” in Microsoft’s cloud services. I was kicking around inside Xbox Music looking for more “free” movie soundtracks to pop onto my Zune HD (yes, I’m still in denial – heh) when I “discovered” that the “same artists” created the soundtrack to Sucker Punch as Natural Brazilian Butt Lift. (You’ll see it right in the middle of the album covers across the bottom of the Zune client.)

Disappointingly, we don’t show a similar row of albums by the “same artist” in the web player at Music.Xbox.com. Maybe someday.

Because I was curious, I went looking for other soundtracks by the “same artist” and discovered that they had also produced the soundtrack to Hunger Games. Too funny.

Yes, I realize that you think I need to get a life, or at least a better sense of humor… but I will posit that if you can’t find humor in your database, you’re not looking hard enough!