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Pandora.com: Shake your musical foundations |
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Written by Donovan Henderson
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Wednesday, 26 April 2006 |
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Love at first feel. It feels good, just like I knew it would. Ha-ha.
Those words are sung in the recognizable growl of Bon Scott, the AC/DC frontman who died in 1980 of alcohol poisoning.
No one makes tacky lyrics work to such perfection like AC/DC.
I hadn’t heard that song in years, but it came streaming through my headphones as I was listening to my Custom Internet Radio Station, designed for my musical tastes at Pandora.com.
The digitization of music has changed how we listen to our favorite songs, and Pandora is one of the Web sites leading the charge to provide alternative ways of consuming music online.
But if all you do is listen to your own iTunes, without any updates, you’ll end up living in a musical vacuum.
That’s where Pandora comes to the rescue.
The Web site gives you the option of creating up to 100 stations that play songs similar to a band or song of your choice.
HOW IT WORKS
The user goes to Pandora.com and types in either a favorite song or band. I created two “stations” based on U2 and AC/DC.
The site then plays streaming songs based on the musical qualities similar to your choices.
Pandora is able to do this because of a remarkable undertaking called the Music Genome Project. (See full explanation below).
Since 2000, a group of music-loving tech geeks analyzed songs from more than 10,000 artists. They broke the songs down by it’s “genes” — melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and vocal harmonies.
All these qualities are then used to match songs that share “genes.” An algorithm is then used to match up the “genes” of the songs.
Tim Westergren, co-founder of the Music Genome Project, called it a “ridiculously academic” approach in a Rolling Stone article. “But the premise is to figure out what you like about music and give you more.”
Using this approach can create some odd matches. An example Westergren gave was serving up Metallica for an Indigo Girls fan.
On my U2 station, the first song was “Perfect Situation” by Weezer, played because of the “guitar instrumentation and harmonies.” The AC/DC station played an AC/DC song “Cover in Oil,” then “Reaction to Action” by Foreigner.
The site provides many cool features.
Each song has its own icon. You can click on the icon and it will give you these options:
• Why did you play this song?
• Make a new station from this song
• Buy this song from iTunes
• Buy this album from Amazon
• Add to Your Favorites Page
• I like it / I don’t like it
Hitting the Guide Us button also provides similar options.
You can listen online for free, but you’ll eventually have to deal with advertisements.
There are subscription options as well: $36 a year or $12 quarterly.
A new gadget that works with Pandora is something called a Slim Devices Squeezebox, which allows you to hook up Pandora to your stereo.
On the Pandora Web site is a link to Squeezebox information and customer feedback.
THE NAME
Pandora means “all gifted” in Greek. In Greek mythology, Pandora received many gifts from the gods, including that of music, from Apollo.
CREATING AN ACCOUNT
Go to Pandora.com, and at the bottom of the Pandora window, select “Account.” It’ll give the option of Log In, Create Account, View Your Favorites.
DRAWBACKS
• It is streaming audio, so you’ll occasionally get hiccups while songs play.
• You can forward past songs you don’t like, but the number of times per hour you’re allowed to do this is limited.
• If you like really obscure artists, you may not find everything you want. A NEXTnc staffer typed in Jorge Moreno, a Puerto Rican salsa singer, but Pandora didn’t recognize him. (I don’t fault the site, however, because I’ve never heard of Moreno either. Apparently, he did sign to one of Madonna’s labels.)
MUSIC GENOME PROJECT
On Jan. 6, 2000, a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever.
Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level.
We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or “genes” into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song...
Tim Westergren, Founder
FAQs
http://blog.pandora.com/faq/index.html
TO READ MORE
We’re not the first write about Pandora. To read other articles, go to
http://blog.pandora.com/press/
SONGS PLAYED WHILE WRITING THIS STORY
• Rock n Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution — AC/DC
• Mean Streets — Van Halen
• Shot From My Gun — Britny Fox
• God of thunder — KISS
• Ballbreaker — AC/DC
• Fly — Loudmouth / (Why was this song played?) Pandora: Based on what you’ve told us so far, we’re playing this track because it features hard rock roots, mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation, a vocal-centric aesthetic, an aggressive male vocal and many similarities identified in the genome project.
• Reaction to Action — Foreigner
• For the Love of Money — Bulletboys
• It Happens — Hopesfall
• We Sweat Blood — Danko Jones
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