The Thinklings

"Well, crying isn't gonna bring your dog back . . . unless your tears smell like dog food. So you can either sit there crying and eating can after can of dog food until your tears smell enough like dog food to make your dog come back or you can go out there and find your dog."

- Homer J. Simpson

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Pandora Puts Me in a Box

Posted by Jared @ 11:49 am CST
Filed under: Technology, Music

I've been using Pandora's "intuitive" music program (www.pandora.com), and I like it pretty well. Kinda cool to have a radio station that learns you.

I appreciate the way it apparently figures out my tastes and preferences (even down to ideal bpm), but I hope they figure out how to walk the line between that and getting into a rut. I tell it I like one particular rap song and then it plays me 10 rap songs in a row.

And because you can only skip a certain number of songs every hour, I end up listening to more songs than I care to that I don't like.

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Comments on "Pandora Puts Me in a Box":

1. Pigwotflies - 12/04/2008 3:21 pm CST

Sounds great. It's not available in the UK though. :-( Ah well.

2. Julianna - 12/05/2008 7:54 am CST

That's what you get for listening to rap. =) JK - just not my preference.

3. jez - 12/05/2008 12:23 pm CST

Jared, which rap song did you like?

4. Chris - 12/05/2008 12:33 pm CST

I really was ga-ga for Pandora until the same thing began to happen to me. But it was Ben Folds, not rap. Too much of any good thing is not a good thing. But I still like it ... and it is free!

5. Jared - 12/05/2008 4:18 pm CST

Jez, when I set it up, I was picking all the artists I like, and I think I told it Jay-Z and Kanye West.
Then of course when it plays a different artist's rap song, if I click that I like it, it factors that in.

I think I clicked that I liked a Notorious B.I.G. song and then it played, like, 6 rap songs in a row, none of which did I care for. Weird.
---

Chris, I get a ton of Ben Folds too! He must have a deal with them or something.

6. BlueNight - 12/11/2008 7:15 pm CST

Heh. I tried putting in all the Classic Rock bands with place names -- Kansas, Boston, Chicago. The first song it played was by Journey.

I found the best way to manage a Pandora station is to avoid the thumbs-up/thumbs-down buttons. The widest pool possible with no further info is good. Don't forget you can have a whole bunch of stations, and QuickMix them together if you feel each station is in a rut.

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