Pandora Conundrum
I long ago gave up buying or even downloading music in favor of streaming it for free on Pandora – a free online radio station that does a pretty impressive job of tuning its stations to your own tastes. The mechanism it uses to do this is a simple thumbs up/thumbs down on each song.
So you start a radio station based on an artist you like and as new songs from other artists play you can either say you like or dislike each. Theoretically this will make the radio station more and more in tune with what you actually like over time, and in fact it does work pretty well.
But sometimes I’m not sure what to do. For instance, a moment ago a John Mayer cover of Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin'” came up. Now, I really like that song, and I really like Tom Petty. I really don’t like John Mayer, however. In fact, I find it quite impossible to listen to his music. So do I vote that I like the song, because I like Tom Petty? Will a no vote only influence whether or not the station plays John Mayer or does a vote on a cover reflect back to the original artist?
These are the hard choices that confront us today.
(On a side note, the title of this post would make a good pulp-sci-fi novel title don’t you think?)
I love the idea but can’t get the service here in Mexico. What’s the deal here? Mexico is North America’s piracy capital and yet…
So… what music do you like? I have a shitload of lady jazz singers if you’re interested. I can easily put them up on my dropbox account for you if you want to trade some stuff…Report
Oh I like tons of different things, all sorts except basically pop and pop country. Who are these lady jazz singers you speak of? I’ll plug the names into said Pandora and give it a shot…
And you don’t get Pandora in Mexico? It’s just pandora.com – I thought it must be everywhere…Report
Too bad Pandora isn’t everywhere. Licensing agreements, according to their web page. I got on their list for when they make the agreement—fat chance!
Anita O’Day; Rachell Farrell; Liz Wright; Jane Monheit; Diana Krall (why not? She has a great voice); Abbey Lincoln; KD Lang; Kate Bush; Nina Simone; Bonnie Raitt (not jazz, but she’s outta sight!)
I’ve got a lot of stuff in Spanish—I love the boleros! Just so you see I’ve got a romantic streak to me!
Check this out. Or this.Report
can’t get pandora in Israel, either, it’s been a terrible shame. Though I understand they’re having some serious financial trouble, and perhaps soon you won’t be getting them in the US, either.
I used Pandora in college a ton, and as I understood it their algorithm is based directly on the ‘sound’ of what you’re hearing, not on any artist information–so you should be fine voting down covers by artists you don’t like. An alternative is last.fm, which functions nearly the same way but does base its ratings on artist info. (And Roque, you may want to check out that one; it works in Israel, and I’m guessing Mexico, as well.)Report
Max: last.fm works great! Fantastic! Now I’m a believer… Thank you!Report
Pandora will actually recognize if you thumb down 2 songs from a particular artist without giving that artist a thumb up, and will no longer play that artist on that station. In your example, if you were to add Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’, or Tom Petty as an artist, as a “seed” on your station, that song/artist will be “protected” on that station.Report
E.D.: Thumb it down!Report