Pandora

[Dr._Weird]

Pandora (pandora.com) is sort of like a (free) radio where you can make your own stations, and guide them as to what they play. How you go about doing this is you make a station based on a song or band, and the station plays things it thinks you would like (based on all sorts of complicated things like key and vocal style as well as tons of other things), and you rate each song that comes up with a thumbs up or down, and slowly it learns your musical tastes and you can just log in and listen to music that you know you will like.

It's also a great place to discover new bands. I've discovered (On my Oomph! station) a band called In Flames (Specifically the club remix of Cloud Connected).

If you find a band you really like, it will give you a link to Amazon or Itunes where you can buy the song.

[Shadow of the Sun]

I prefer Last.fm, it is more versatile and can be used no matter what country you live in.

[Dr._Weird]

To my knowledge, it doesn't matter what country you live in. Honestly, it's not hard to find a zip code to put in. I live in Switzerland and I had no trouble.

EDIT: Hell, just use mine. 61821. I don't remember if it needs an address though... if it did I probably just used the one from when I lived in the US. Which I am not telling you.

[FdL]

Pandora it's ok. But it's not for me, it doesn't work with me. It could work for people who don't actively look for new music, I already know like 90% of the music there that's worth checking out. Still it's pretty nice.

[Reinforcements]

Pandora is cool, but their library tends to be kinda limited in some cases. (Protip: Don't include Weird Al in your station's list unless you REALLY like "I Lost on Jeopardy".)

[Jorkens]

Yeah, the zip code thing can be solved by a simple combination of google and bare faced lying.

My main issue with it is that it's nowhere near as clever as it could be - it tends to stick to playing you stuff that's a bit similar to a particular tune you aready like, if you enter two tunes then it just alternates playing stuff that's a bit like one and a bit like the other, so if you enter a couple of folk tunes and a couple of techno tunes it'll play you half folk and half techno but not try to figure out what sort of folk you'll like based on your tate in techno or anything like that...

[FdL]

Plus in the end it's another computer program. And I can't really narrow the music I like because it has "acoustic instruments", "syncopation", "heavy vamping" or any tag or feature you can rationalize and classify it with. I like music that is different and don't have a strict set of objective features why I do. It would had to be like a million database fields for each songs like "the way she pronounces 'giddy'"*, "that vintagey guitar tone", "12-string byrdsy leads" or things like that :D
I do think it's an interesting experiment, but it's far from what it wants to be. At worst, though, is yet another attempt to try to standarise and pigeonhole music to sell it to people. And you know, real music doesn't work like that. Even though there's a tendency nowadays, I mean, there's actually things like music that's made to sound like cellphone ringtones, for crying out loud! :s


* Heavenly's "Space Manatee", in case you were wondering.

[Amotis]

*minimalisticly drones on the e string all birdsy style*

I agree, I tried it out and it felt pretty banal, to be vulgar.

[FdL]

*minimalisticly drones on the e string all birdsy style*


Hahaha! That was really nice! :D Oh how I'd like to play like McGuinn sounds on those records! I do have an influence of that, but probably via Peter Buck's style...There's no sound in rock like the 12 string chime of a Rickenbacker. It does the trick every time for me, straight there!

[Amotis]

You know Chapman right? (Modern minimalist composer, 100 guitar symphony, 400 guitar symphony, pretty famous and some cool standpoint stuff) I remember him laughing about how The Byrds were doing that long before he was and how he never really realized it (he was talking about a piece that consisted of, a high hat, his detuned guitar and his right hand, with pictures flashing on the background). The Byrds are cool and damn straight that 12 string was the bomb. Him and George make me want to buy one...

[Glaivemaster]

Yeah, I use Pandora. I find that if you put some work into it, it can actually turn out really well, but just putting an artist or song name in and expecting it to play everything that you love is not going to work

Also, some certain music just isn't going to work anyway, due to their tags, which is a shame. My 'Hero of the Day' and 'Nothing Else Matters' stations will never work out how I'd like them, partly because there's very little else like it, and also because the tags they are given lend themselves to much different styles of music, which I definitely do not enjoy. Having said that, I am starting to turn my 'Hero of the Day' station into something that I don't mind listening to now and again