Music discovery has never been more difficult for me. First of all, I have less time than I’ve ever had to listen to new music, whether it’s going to concerts, listening to the radio (satellite or terrestrial) or simply browsing the inventory at Amazon, CDBaby or iTunes.
And frankly, even if I had copious amounts of time, I’m not sure that more time listening to these sources would help me out. Why? Well terrestrial radio is just too much talk, too many commercials and still only plays the mainstream hits – even the supposed indie channels don’t seem to take any real chances.
As a longtime listener to XM radio, it’s “better” than terrestrial radio in that the mix to chatter to music is good, but the music library feels small to me. Perhaps this is because of lawsuits from the record labels trying to extract additional fees from XM that regular terrestrial stations don’t pay. Either way, I find very few new artists on XM.
So what’s one to do? To me there is one excellent and simple way: Pandora. The Music Genome Project is the basis of the technology which analyzes an artist (or song) that you like and discovers other new music that is similar. All along the way, you get to rate particular music tracks and the system really learns what you like.
Okay, you’ve used affinity systems before. They suck. You may even have been an early Pandora user (as I was) and you may have found it hit or miss. Well, they’ve nailed it now. It really, really works. They’ve licensed a ton of more content and categorized many more songs. And being a lifelong musician I’d have to admit that I agree with upwards of 80-90% of their selections. The best part however, is the content they are categorizing isn’t the mainstream junk that one normally hears on the other channels. Pandora has become a very simple and powerful platform in my musical life: I input tunes and artists I already love and it spits out even more tunes and artists that I love that I’ve never heard of. It just works. Two of the three music recommendations on my music tab were discovered through the site.
Thank you Pandora. Keep it going guys.
Bill, I'm jealous. I'm going to have to get me a system, as well.
Comment by jason4307 — July 31, 2009 @ 2:20 am
Jason –
It's delightful to hear that you're finding Pandora so useful, and that you're enjoying our varied collection!
Thanks for listening, and thanks for spreading the word.
Comment by Lucia @ Pandora — July 31, 2009 @ 2:20 am
I agree, Pandora rocks. It especially rocks now that I have the Logitech Duet and can stream it via my home speakers.
Comment by bill_burnha3294 — July 31, 2009 @ 2:20 am
I would agree. Pandora has introduced to me to few good bands that play my taste in music. Although, more than sampling new artists, I also like the concept of my own radio channel that I can stream to my headphones while at work. Its free, its customizable and its good quality.
Comment by Varun — July 31, 2009 @ 2:20 am
Pandora is great – although my hit-to-miss ratio isn't as friendly as your's. You might give Grooveshark a try sometime. It doesn't provide nearly the discovery capabilities of Pandora, but it's on-demand listening experience is much richer.
Comment by Adam Steinberg — July 31, 2009 @ 2:20 am
Jason thanks for encouraging me to give Pandora another try. I was an early user and basically got frustrated because their suggestions weren't matching up with my tastes. After reading your post I decided to give them another try. Seems like they've definitely improved the algorithm. And just in time because I've been getting sick of listening to the same stuff on my iTunes. So far so good.
Comment by adam38631 — July 31, 2009 @ 2:20 am