Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Pandora Radio

I wouldn't know anything about this website if my brother hadn't told me, so kudos to Jay.

Even though I'm not particularly savvy regarding technology and tons of people might know about this already, I thought this was cool so I thought I'd share.  Usually when I'm at work, I settle for listening to some San Diego radio station online because 1) I don't have iTunes on my computer at work, and 2) I just can't browse through Myspace and Youtube endlessly to play music that I like. But even doing the online radio thing I endure way more commercial breaks than I'd like, so it's so much nicer to be able customize your own radio station depending on your mood. Or even 10 stations at a time if you'd like. 

For Pandora Radio all you need to do to create a station is type in an artist, song, or composer and it will generate your own station by selecting music with similar qualities. For example, type in "Queen" and you get:

-Electric rock instrumentation
-A subtle use of paired vocal harmony
-Repetitive melodic phrasing
-Extensive vamping
-Paired vocal harmony

Or if you're feeling some "Cool Kids" it comes up songs that have these characteristics:
-East Coast rap influences
-Electronica influences
-A knack for catchy hooks
-Sparse beats
-Use of call-and-response vocals

If you like the songs that the station generates, you can give it a thumbs up and it'll be repeated sometime in the future. You can also give a song a thumbs down if you don't care for it too much, then it won't be played on that station anymore. 

I think the Pandora application is available for the iPhone and is available for downloading to Windows as well. Happy listening!

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