...In addition to the WANcast, I mean.

Heard about this on Air America yesterday: http://www.pandora.com

The Music Genome Project! Type the name of a band or song you like, and they have detailed analysis that predicts what else you might like based on those qualities. You can add other bands or songs, and it cross-references the qualities you like that are common to those bands to narrow what you like about them. As it plays songs, you can rate whether you like them or not so it can learn more about your tastes.

I started with XTC and the Beach Boys, and from there it played me an obscure Kinks tune. I gave it the thumbs up, and then it started throwing obscure Freakbeat stuff I hadn't heard before that was amazing. Then it was on kind of a late '80s college pop thing with Prefab Sprout, and now back to Surfer Girl.

They want to sell you a premium membership to avoid ads, but in about 90 minutes, I haven't heard an ad yet.

Way cool!

Whatever you do, don't type in Paul Weller. They got one only band right ~ Cosmic Rough Riders ~ in an hour's worth of (skipped) tracks.

Spongetones ~ NONE right.

That is the coolest. Thanks Hank -- I'd never heard of it. I gave 'em Jonathan Richman and they played "Ice Cream Man", then "Left of Centre" by Sloan, "Fanfare" by Mark Geary, now Lou Reed with "Wild Child". None of these I'd heard, and they're all great by me.

Ace. I'm gonna leave it on while I sleep tonight. It will learn, and grow, and feed...

I'm diggin' it so far! Thanks, Hank!

Marshall Crenshaw ~ APPALLINGLY wrong. 38 Special?!?

"Is 'smithereens' a song name or artist name?"

Maybe I should give up ...

They asked me the same thing about The Beatles....


(Yes, I know. It's a HUGE surprise to everybody that I chose The Beatles!)

How come this is working for everyone else?? I should put in Brian Wilson, it'll probably play Tiny Tim!!

The Smithereens query generated Super Deluxe, but then a load of mainstream twaddle. Big Star returned nothing but lo-fi squawkers. Either my tastes are abnormal, or I'm picking bands who haven't had enough queries yet to have been massaged into shape, or the people who originally programmed Pandora are hippies.

You'd think that The Beatles would be the first song played after The Spongetones ... the 'Tones description said "rockabilly-style playing"!? I'm telling you, Pandora was made by hippies!

I got The Beatles, followed by The Turtles, Elton John, some stuff I didn't like, then back to The Beatles. So far it's going okay by me....

I'm getting a lot of hair metal tunes....I'm loving it so far....

How is this different than Launchcast?

-Comp

This one goes to 11.

I've given this a try. The advantage it has on Launchcast is that it's entirely focused on you. No recommendations that aren't based on your suggestions, very smart rationale for the songs it plays, and thus far, no commercials.

The disadvantage is, you can only rank things as like or dislike. Launchcast allows a ranking of 0-4 for any artist, album, or song, which I think is a much better way to put together a good station. Right now, the Music Genome station is playing songs I think are decent, and I don't know what to do about it. It's not like I never want to hear these songs again, but I don't want these songs to dominate the station.

So right now, I definitely prefer Launchcast. After all, I've devoted years to my Launchcast station, it knows what I like.

-Comp

Five years later, and Pandora is ubiquitous. Everyone I know uses it.

I use last.fm much more than Pandora. Both are very good though. Plug my phone into my car stereo and away I go. I only listen to broadcast radio when I want to hear news or sports, much like how I watch broadcast television nowadays.