Who else finds Pandora totally wierd?

[kwassa]

I have some really great stations with Pandora, and some that are downright bizarre.

Case in point: I set up a station based on Van Morrison's "Blue Money". I get songs from the Beach Boys, then Rick Springfield (!), and then "Sugar Sugar" by the Archies! What sane live human D.J. would ever do that? There is no cultural context to these songs, no relationship that I can see.

This shows the limits of software, I guess.

[gmoney]

1. well, isn't it largely about tempo and instrumentation

I just put it in, and it said it will play songs "Musically similar" in terms of instrumentation, traditional pop song structure, etc.

So, Blue Money was a mainstream pop song in traditional 60s/70s Top 40 single structure. I can see how it gets you to the others you mentioned. What were you expecting?

If you built a station around "Into The Mystic" I'm sure you'd get a different selection.

[kwassa]

2. I think this proves the limitations of instrumentation and structure as guides.

I have some other stations that work well, sometimes simply based on a artist.

[TZ]

3. Depends.

I've gotten into a new genre of music lately (Ska) and I find that Pandora is coming up with music that matches what a friend of mine has recommended in the genre pretty closely!

[rcrush]

4. Its great when you want to listen to music but dont feel like deciding on a song

I have several hundred albums on my pc but I dont feel like picking one so I listen to what Pandora tells me to.

[Wapsie B]

5. I enjoy it a lot.

When I first tried it out it took a bit of time to find the songs that fit whatever particular sound I was looking for on any particular station. But once you're on a station enough and select enough songs it has a fairly good handle of what you're looking for.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

6. If you compare it side-by-side with Last.FM, it blows CHUNKS.

I've found one flaw in Last.FM...which probably exists in Pandora and every other site of its kind...and that is the fact that they don;t correctly tag some of the music.

I set up a "Progressive Rock" station, and holy crap, did they deliver some GEMS, like Sylvan, The Watch, RWPL, Frost, Devil's Slingshot, The Reasoning, Billy Sherwood, Brett Garsed, and Gazpacho.

But there is a progressive band called IQ that sounds a lot like prime, pre-pop Genesis. There is also a teenage disco-dance pop girl group called IQ. So they keep slipping the girl group into the prog station, which totally blows the mood.

The other thing I like about Last.FM, over Pandora, is that they set up your "Library" so you can go back and find the name of that song you listened to last week. Pandora has the little scrolling window, but unless the listening history is buried in a part of the site I haven't discovered yet, you're out of luck.

Last.FM has a better selection, too...I tried searching for some of the artists I listed above on Pandora, and they're nowhere to be found.

If you want mainstream, Pandora is a safe bet. If you want adventure and discovery, it's Last.FM all the way.

:toast:

[kwassa]

7. yes, I immediately stumped Pandora with my first requests.

I'm into Afropop, and a type of Caribbean music known as zouk.

Pandora has never heard of either.

The NY Times did an article on Pandora a couple of weeks back, a big feature in the magazine. It said that there are entire genres they haven't got to yet, because they need a base of about 3000 songs in each in order for their system to work.

edit to add:

I just tried last.FM, and found the Afropop and zouk artists I was looking for IMMEDIATELY.

Thanks for the tip!