Finding new music can be a frustrating, time consuming activity, but internet radio has allowed music lovers to find new tracks and artists outside of the monotony offered by conventional radio. My internet radio site of choice is www.pandora.com. It is fueled by the Music Genome Project which assigns more than 400 attributes to every song; thereby creating a “genetic code” for every song. These attributes allow Pandora to predict what songs users will like based on their listening history.

Talking nerdy aside, this technology is dope. Users can create multiple stations which are dedicated to each of their musical tastes. Riding the social networking train, Pandora also allows users to share their stations for all to hear. Here are some that I created in the name of funkrocks:

Indie Rock

Hip Hop

Grunge/90’s Rock

Ambient

Create Your Own Station and Let New Music Find You: 

The first step is to pick a song or artist that you like. Pandora will start by playing a song from this artist (or the actual song) and go on to play songs which share similar attributes with that original song. As the songs are played, you can give feedback to your stations by attaching a thumbs up or thumbs down to a song. Ideally, your station will take in all of the feedback to create a radio station which plays only music that you like. As the songs are playing you can also pause and skip tracks. In addition, you can add other artists and songs to your station’s profile further tuning your station.

New Musicians Welcome:

I am constantly impressed with Pandora’s selection of artists and songs. Where do they find all of these obscure bands you may ask? (excuse my cheese) Musicians can submit their work to Pandora in the form of a CD. Once the music passes Pandora’s inspection/approval, it can find its way into the rotation of Pandora users’ stations. If users like the music, they can conveniently purchase the song or album on Amazon or iTunes via their stations’ playlist links.

Happy Listening

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