By Alison R., Teen Portal Staff Writer
I was drinking some hot chai on the sofa, listening to my friend’s new alternative music as she explained how she’d discovered this particular band.
“I found him on Pandora,” she said, casually throwing out the word.
Another new techie fad, I thought.
My friend’s mom turned to me. “Do you know what Pandora is?”
I didn’t, of course.
Pandora, as it turns out, is an “Internet radio” with “stations that play only music you like,” according to the Web site. What this means for music lovers everywhere is that, if you like one particular artist or even just a certain song, Pandora has the tools to find all the music with the same “musical qualities” to get you more of what you like. Did I mention it’s free?
Pandora finds music based on the stations you create around a particular artist or song, the upper limit being 100 stations, and uses the “primary characteristics” of your musical taste to find all the music with the most similar qualities. As Pandora comes up with a list of suggestions, you can choose either the thumbs-up or thumbs-down to signal if you like the choice or not. The station will remember the songs you like and leave behind the ones you don’t. (If you’re not sure, my suggestion is not to do anything.) In addition, Pandora has loads of reference pages and other little quirks for your enjoyment. Plus – and this is a big one – it’s also available on iPhone and iTouch.
The first time I logged into Pandora, I found the freedom of choosing favorite artists giddying and went on a station-creating spree within the first five minutes of signing up, eventually stabilizing around ten. Some of the music I liked wasn’t in their database, but similar styles were easy enough to create by choosing the artist or a similar group and narrowing down the criteria by being generous with the thumbs-down.
Some artists were so unique that the offerings bottomed out to a select five or so similar groups. Sometimes choosing distinct songs hit gold; others times they were so rare the database had nothing good to offer.
Traditional tunes and classical music were lacking, mostly because Pandora relies on popular music more so than anything else, but their genre music stations make up for some of the gaps. In the end, I liked the wide variety and the stations’ uncanny ability to detect my tastes.
True to its name, Pandora operates just like a radio, and, though it can get past a lot of copyright issues, it’s also restricted by its licenses. You’re allowed to skip only six songs per hour, each song only plays once per appearance, and Pandora also doesn’t operate outside the US. Most importantly, it’s not allowed to play things “on-demand,” so if you really want to listen to a particular song right now, you’re out of luck.
To their credit, Pandora’s makers anticipate the frustration these complications create. Little bars are popping up all the time explaining why something isn’t happening or how you can perform a certain function; the FAQ, accessed by the “Help” button, takes 42 pages to print.
Overall, though, considering the fees Pandora pays to four separate licensing associations, being able to listen to your own music style without navigating mountains of YouTube tabs definitely seems worth it.
Signing up is easy enough. Your e-mail is also your username, but I definitely recommend finding a separate password. Unless you want to pay, the advertisements will follow you in. (To spice things up, I put my gender down as “male,” so now I get all the guys’ ads.)
Founded by Pandora Media, Inc., Pandora runs on the Music Genome Project, an ambitious musical taxonomy project that aims to analyze and categorize all the music from “this past Tuesday’s new releases all the way back to the Renaissance” using “400 distinct musical characteristics,” from key to rhythm to musical and regional influences to specific characteristics like “extensive vamping” and “upbeat lyrics.
