Be your own DJ (Pandora.com)

Member Name: jaggynettles

Product:	Pandora.com
Date:	11/02/06 (1224 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: over 300,000 songs at your finger tips

Disadvantages: need flash plug-in, licensing issues

Pandora is a music library website that lets you create your own personal radio station, based on the information you feed it.

Behind the scenes, Pandora is the most comprehensive database of songs that I've ever come across. Each song in their library has been studied and one of 30 specialists has collated hundreds of details about it - from melody, harmony and instrumentation to rhythm, vocals and lyrics. All these attributes are then fed in to the database which you, the listener, access using a small web-based program.

The way the program works is simple. You tell Pandora one of your favourite songs or artists, hit the enter button, and it launches a streaming radio station based on that song / artist. You can have as many different radio stations as you like.

You will need to have the plug-in called "Flash Player" installed on your machine to be able to view the interface that Pandora uses. If you don't have it already, then it is free to download from Macromedia.com and only takes a couple of minutes to install.


WILL THEY HAVE MY FAVOURITE ARTIST?

The web-based program allows you to connect to over 300,000 songs from over 10,000 artists and in a matter of milliseconds; it will scan its entire library to find songs with similarities to your choice.

If Pandora can't find the artist you request then they encourage you to contact them with details about the band / artist and they promise to put it in their investigation box.

If you do find the artist you like, in very few instances, you may find Pandora may not play a particular song by that artist. The reason for this is that their music license may not allow them to play it.

From my brief foray into Pandora, I found the library to be incredibly diverse and it covers most genres of music, with the exception of world music and classical. Not only will you find artists signed to the major and indie record labels but (and this was when I went "wow!"), Pandora also stores music by un-signed and self-published musicians. How cool is that?

By the way, if you do have a band yourself, it is worth sending a copy of your record on CD to them. Full details of what information Pandora requires from you are available on their site (see their FAQs page).


DO I HAVE TO REGISTER?

No, you don't. You can access the database and set up your own radio station without registering. This is fine if you're just using it from time to time, but if like me you want to save you're settings to come back and play a radio station that you've previously set up then it is worth registering (*please refer to my final paragraphs in the review).


GREAT, NOW IS IT FREE?

Yes and no. Pandora offers two levels of membership.

As with many sites on the net, the "free" membership level means you have to put up with sponsors advertising. Ad banners and links on Pandora are minimal so I would recommend this option until such times when Pandora starts getting greedy.

For those who want to steer clear of advertising altogether, there is a second membership option to cut them out. This costs £20 ($36) a year.


MY FIRST RADIO STATION

For my first radio station I typed the artist "Jack Johnson" into Pandora's program and it came back with a message saying:-
"To start, we'll play songs that exemplifies the musical style of Jack Johnson featuring mellow rock instrumentation, a subtle use of vocal harmony, mild rhythmic syncopation, mixed acoustics and major key tonality."

I wasn't sure what half those words meant but what followed was a continuous stream of some amazing tracks, many from bands I 'd never even heard of, including Josh Ritter, The Church, Jeffrey Gaines, The Dave Matthews Band, Brendan Benson and of course Jack Johnson.

Oh I was a very happy girl and there was not a James Blunt in earshot… hoorah! I sat at my office desk for the next few hours working away, dancing inside, and ignoring a colleague who was trying to get my attention my throwing paper planes at me.

If a song comes up that you don't like, you can select to skip it and Pandora will not play it again on your station. You can guide the radio station at any time by hitting the "guide" button and letting the station know where you really like, or dislike a song.

I also found that as soon as a track starts playing an image of the artist appears on screen. If you hear a track you really like and want to find out more, all you have to do is click on the image and more details will appear about the artist and, where available, a link to Amazon and iTunes to buy their album.


STRANGE! WHY ARE YOU PLAYING THAT?

For my second radio station I was feeling in a reflective shoe-gazing mood, so typed in "The Smiths". Once again, it took a split second for the station to be built (oh, I'm such a good DJ) and into my ears floated The Smiths, West Coast Pop Art Experimental, Dinosaur Junior and The Ramones. Oh easy tiger, back-up a minute! The Ramones? Why are they playing that?

As I mentioned before, Pandora treat each song as a separate musical performance and this is the thing that makes this website so wonderfully unique. There is no preconceived notion of what the artist "usually" sounds like, or how they are usually pigeonholed. Since artists often record in a variety of styles, you'll get some surprising bedfellows on your radio station but the songs you hear will all centre on the artist or song you initially entered.


OTHER OPTIONS

There are other parts of Pandora that I haven't fully explored yet. One such option is the "share this station with a friend". As far as I can tell, this option simply emails your friend a link to your station so they can listen to it too.

Another option which I'll get around to looking at soon is the "Shared Stations". Here, Pandora track the most popular listened-to stations and make them available to you.

The services and options available on Pandora are incredible extensive. I won't go into anymore detail in my review as it's covered in great detail on Pandora's "About", "FAQ" and "Blog" pages.


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*AM I A CRIMINAL?

So there I was sitting at my desk, dancing inside and browsing through Pandora's site when I came across this paragraph of text:-

"At this time we are only licensed to offer Pandora music services to residents of the United States. Audio streaming regulations differ from country to country, and we are working on acquiring the proper licenses so we can legally offer Pandora outside of the United States."

Oh, so where does this leave me? I can access the site, listen to it, but am I breaking the law? Or, does the blame rest firmly with Pandora in allowing overseas IP addresses to connect to their database?

As I sat wondering whether the FBI where about to kick down the door to my office I found a paragraph further down the same page about trouble-shooting audio which only confused me further. It said this:-

" …all of our audio servers are in the US. If you are attempting to access Pandora from outside the US, the distance that the audio must travel (and the number of network "hops" from our servers to your machine) can be a very real issue."

This seemed to imply that Pandora are aware they have overseas listeners and this doesn't seem to bother them.

Before I allowed the question of "Am I criminal?" to vex me any further, "Ask Me" by the Smiths started playing and off I went on a musical adventure with "a buck-toothed girl from Luxembourg".

So, in conclusion, all I can say is that Pandora offers an absolutely amazing music service but whether you decide to check it out or not is entirely up to you.

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THE TECHNICAL STUFF

Pandora works on:
Windows 2000 and XP with Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox.
MacOS X 10.3+ with Safari and Firefox.
Flash Player 6 + is required
1Ghz processor and 256M of RAM.
Speakers or headphones
A broadband Internet connection (dialup is not supported)

website: www.pandora.com
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© jaggynettles / kollarosie on ciao

Summary: Create your own radio station in 5 minutes