Internet Radio Part I: Pandora

One area I’ve neglected to cover so far has been music, but that’s about to change. This is the first of two articles about free Internet radio that helps you discover new music. This week we’ll look at Pandora, which is part of the Music Genome Project. This ambitious project set out to categorize every song by its most basic elements, such as melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, etc. They then connected all of these similar elements together, mapping out the “genes” of each song. The Music Genome Project doesn’t focus on bands or genres; it looks at each song individually. To date, they have cataloged over 10,000 artists and many more songs. All of this work is at your fingertips with Pandora.

Pandora is a “radio station” built right into your browser in a flash console. The first thing you do when you go to the site is to make a profile and start your own radio station. You do this by naming songs or artists that you like. Pandora then connects this music to other music in its library and mixes the songs or artists you named with similar songs and artists. The “stations” are most successful at finding similar music if you set up individual stations for the different types of music that you like. As you listen, you can tell Pandora if you like or dislike a song, and your “radio station” learns how to pick better music for you.

I like Pandora because it requires no downloading; it’s all there in your browser. And I’ve heard some great artists on Pandora that I’ve never heard before. However, Pandora’s music licenses have some limitations. You can’t skip over too many songs in each station, although this is easily circumvented by switching to another station and then switching back. Pandora doesn’t actually play the songs you like very often; the focus is on new music. Sometimes I wish it would play more of the songs that I like. Another limitation: Pandora doesn’t do classical music, since mapping the “genome” would be infinitely more difficult.

I recommend giving Pandora a try. It’s extremely easy to use, and you can take it with you wherever you go. Hopefully you will find some great artists that you’ve never heard before.

Next week I’ll review Last.fm, a different and more communal Internet radio experience.