Pandora – Try It. Really.

If you haven’t tried Pandora, you should. So far, it’s the only thing that has attracted me away from listening to Radio Paradise.

Here’s how it works.

You create a ‘radio station’ (basically a ‘channel’). In that, you hand it a few songs, or bands that you like – best if you choose a specific genre. For instance, I created a ‘progressive rock’ channel, and seeded it with Spocks Beard. Pandora will start playing songs it thinks are similar. From what it plays, you can say “Yep, that’s great!” or “No, I don’t like that at all.” If you find the station is drifting, or is not including other similar styles, you can seed in new band names or tracks.

So far I’ve set up a couple channels:

  • Progressive
    Spocks Beard, ELO, Alan Parsons Project, Yes

  • Modern Folk?
    The Duhks, Nickle Creek

  • 80’s Mix
    Tears for Fears

  • Live Blues / Jazz
    Les McCann, BB King

If you’d like to listen to any of these tracks, they should be available on my profile page, just click on the feeds (they’re named after the first band or song you add to them).

These channels have netted new bands I’d never heard of, and songs that were new, but, 8 times out of 10, they were songs and artists I liked. So I tell Pandora “Yes, please, more like that!” When I find a band I’d like to really find out more about, I ‘bookmark’ them. I have a list of new bands I hadn’t heard of before, but now I’ll look for more of their music:

  • The Flower Kings
  • Tim O’Brien
  • The Green Cards
  • The David Grisman Quartet
  • Pete Murray

It would be unlikely that I’d run across these folks listening to broadcast radio, though RP might play them. Both sources (RP and Pandora) are opening me up to wonderful new music. I love technology.

About

A wandering geek. Toys, shiny things, pursuits and distractions.

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3 thoughts on “Pandora – Try It. Really.

  1. (they’re named after the first band or song you add to them)

    They’re named that by default, but I find that after it’s got a half dozen different artists in it, it’s less confusing to rename it to something more generic. 🙂 Just click the little down arrow at the right on the station, for your own stations.

  2. I loved Pandora when I first tried it, but stopped listening because I had to pay too close attention. I want to be able to have the music on in the background and then go back several songs later to find out what it was I just heard, and Pandora won’t let me go back more than two or three songs to see. Drives me nuts. 🙂

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