Sunday, December 11, 2005

Opening Pandora's music box

This is so cool, I'm cross posting it. I just got the best present by wandering over to The Living Rockumentary, blog of Henning's School for The Dead, my old pals from the Baystate Hotel era. Brian, the busiest drummer in the Happy Valley, had a post up on the best music website, ever.

The aptly named Pandora has this Music Genome Project that creates a playlist for you. Basically if you hit the listen now button at the top right of the screen, it asks you for a favorite song or artist. It plays that and then chooses other songs and artists based on on that choice.

I put in the Youngbloods, so it's searching for challenging intrumentals with complicated lyrics for me. You can reject the ones you don't like. I've only rejected two so far. And I love not knowing what's coming next. It's like getting a present every 3 to 5 minutes.

It's a little spooky because every time you reject something, it modifies the list to exclude that song and I assume assigns some psychological criteria to your profile. You can also modify the lists in other ways and download music. Brian explains that part here. I suspect it's some government plot to compile a database but I joined anyway. So far the music has been worth it.

I signed up for the free service that says you have to listen to ads, but so far I haven't heard any. You can hear it ad free for three bucks a month. I'm going to wait to see how often I listen to it once the novelty wears off, before I decide. But an hour in, I'm really loving it.
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6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

That's awesome! I'm going there immediately - thanks for the info :D

1:21:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Would you believe I'm not entitled to create an account because I'm not in the US? What a crime!

I thought about using my parent's zip code in California, but then realised I was potentiall dealing with the recording artists of America and wouldn't stand a chance...

Nobody pays attention to the poor Aussies

4:44:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh I'm so sorry to hear that. That rather stinks but it figures. Every good thing has a down side.

It's really a great site. I stayed way too late listening last night.

10:40:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

This is an *awesome* website! I put in some favorite indie artists, and I'm getting all kinds of recommendations to explore. You can set up multiple playlists, too.

Wow - this is going to cut into my productivity....

And Mike, I don't think it is an "Aussie" thing - it is a whole Asia/Pacific thing. Too much intellectual property theft going on down there, though mostly not on the part of Aussies, I think.

Last time I was down there, I-tunes was also not available. Is that still the case?

11:52:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh I know it's not just an Aussie thing...I was just being sarcastic. It's not that surprising really given all the laws and regulations people have to deal with. As far as they're concerned they're just being careful I'd say. With a new venture like that you want to make sure you start off on the right foot - especially with all the focus on recording artist rights at the moment.

Besides, it's hard enough to keep track of laws in one country, let alone all of them.

I think they did say they'd be expanding it at some point anyway. I'll definitely keep my ears open. Until then I can use the guest version anyway :D

2:14:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh sorry, missed your question MP. I'm pretty sure that iTunes has been formally launched here, though I haven't used it yet.

It will be a good thing to have because the price of CD's relative to shops is significantly less from the look of things. Plus I like having the option to buy just one or two tracks :D

2:16:00 PM  

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