This morning, I tried to start a Purple People Eater station, but the system hung up, and the only actual tune suggested was "The Purple People Eater Meets The Witchdoctor," by The Big Bopper (Hey Bayyybeeee!), which I'm assuming was a followup to "Chantilly Lace." I'll try to set up a Sheb Wooley station right now -- be interesting to see what comes up

Careful. You might break it.

Sheb was quite the accomplished musician....don't think alot is still aired though....there's a Sheb Wooley website....lists all his songs by year of recording.

http://www.shebwooley.com

Oh yeah.....I Googled it....thought I should disclose this information is from an outside source!

dees_1 wrote:Sheb was quite the accomplished musician....don't think alot is still aired though....there's a Sheb Wooley website....lists all his songs by year of recording.

http://www.shebwooley.com

Oh yeah.....I Googled it....thought I should disclose this information is from an outside source!

I figured you Googled it. I would have been worried if you were the sort of person who had shebwooley.com as a Favorite that you returned to several times throughout the day.

David "I commenced to shakin' and I said "ooh-eee" Hammond

Be afraid Dave....be *very* afraid!



Sheb's not in my favorites; I had to Google to make sure I recalled the correct artist....yes, *that's* the kind of information running around my noggin....scary, scary stuff.

What I like about Pandora is that if you are patient, they will eventually play the song.

For example, I heard a song from a group "Big and Rich". I entered the name of the group and eventually, they played the song I heard.

I have been spending a lot of time on iTunes radio section. Discovered AM1710 Antioch - 24/7 Old Time Radio. Dragnet is on as I speak. The Whistler 11-12.

One great site that works fairly well at finding the name of that song you just don't know the name of:

The Song Tapper

Tap out the rhythm of the lyrics, and it tries to figure out the song.

It's certainly not perfect, but it's pretty good.

Hi everyone -

great to read all of these comments. one suggestion - looks like most of you are using artists to launch stations. I suggest trying a song as a seed, it allows you to be much more specific.

This may be a food board, but you're clearly all a bunch of music lovers too!

Cheers.

Tim (Pandora Founder)

Tim,

Thanks for joining in the discussion.

I appreciate the apparent randomness of some selections, and I've been able to overcome the momentary flash of worry and self-doubt when, for instance, the Bay City Rollers came up in the same category with an artist I had selected (Talking Heads).

Without going into more detail than lay people would be able to grasp, how is it that a song title can lead to more specific sorts? It would seem that a song, especially if its popular and performed by many artists, would radically open up the universe of possible types of performers and, thus, of possible types of music.

Hammond

When you enter an artist, that station is created by choosing songs from across their entire repertoire, and creating stations based on each song. If the artist has a broad range, the radio can jump all over the place. A single song (which means the specific version of that song selectve), is a far more narrow guide for the station-creating.

If you like variety, and like an artist's entire collection, artists make great stations. If you want something specific, try a song.

As you provide feedback, the station will develop a more detailed understanding of what you want, eg. "which Bruce Springstreen did you mean, Nebraska or Born in the USA.."

I can answer this one.

Take an artist like, say, Miles Davis, who had about 43 different sounds throughout his career.

If you enter in "Miles Davis" to pandora, you might get something from "Birth of the Cool", or something from "Bitches Brew", or something from "Doo-Wop". Or something completely different. Today the first one it gave me was "Wait Till You See Her", a great track, but maybe not my favorite Miles Davis.

If you instead put in, say, "In A Silent Way" it prompts you to choose an artist. I choose Miles Davis, and the next track it feeds me is "Yesternow", which is MUCH more like "In A Silent Way" than "Wait Till You See Her" was.

perfect example!

Pandora has revealed some, shall we say, disturbing taste trends. I set up an Ella Fitzgerald station, and was enjoying the tunes from various artists, and was particularly struck by "It Had to be You." So I maximized the page to "vote" the song/artist in as a favorite, and found it was by Doris Day. So now I'm a Doris Day fan.

Like I said, disturbing.

Hammond

I don't have a whole lot to add, but having had some experience using Pandora, I'm really enjoying this a lot.

And much as I'd hoped, I'm getting about 80% artists I've never heard of, like Bill Mallonee who's just come up on my Terry Allen station, and you know, he's pretty good.

What I'm curious to see, over time, is if I discover anyone else I really like. To this point, there are lots of songs that I pretty much like, but nothing that's
so captured my fancy that I've started buying their music or started on the road to fandom. But, hey, I'm still pretty new to this, and Lefty Frizzell is sounding pretty good right now.

You know, I also kind of like what seem like "random" connections because they challenge your view of your favored artists.

And playing off the oldtime radio tangent, if anyone is a fan of Jean Shepherd's radio and TV shows, more than 1500 of them are archived at shep-archives.com -- it also has links to other, more modest archives and a Shep podcast.

Aaron Deacon wrote:You know, I also kind of like what seem like "random" connections

Yes, it's educational. And fun!

One of my several daughters is going to be in New York this summer, interning and managing a group called Dresden Dolls. They're neo-caberet, a genre of which I was (am still pretty much am) entirely ignorant. So I set up a Dresden Dolls station, and now I can speak with some authority about their sound, as well as that of Mates of State, Smoosh, and others of the genre (minor key tonality, vocal-centric aesthetic, banging piano, acoustic/electric instrumentation). Still, I was disturbed when Lindsay Lohan came up as a singer I might like...and more disturbingly, I kinda did.

I tell you. Pandora is the best use of the internet since LTHForum.

Hammond

I hate to burst your bubble, but if a radio station is burping up Mates of State and Smoosh as somehow related to The Dresden Dolls something is seriously wrong. I suppose they're contemporaries, but saying they sound similar is like saying John Zorn is related to Pat Metheny(ok...Methany had that one terrible attempt at a noise album) or Chick Corea. Cool about your daughter, tho'. I'm not a fan of DD, but they're certainly well thought of in certain circles.

Christopher Gordon wrote:I hate to burst your bubble, but if a radio station is burping up Mates of State and Smoosh as somehow related to The Dresden Dolls something is seriously wrong. I suppose they're contemporaries, but saying they sound similar is like saying John Zorn is similar to Pat Metheny(ok...Methany had that one terrible attempt at a noise album) or Chick Corea. Cool about your daughter, tho'. I'm not a fan of DD, but they're certainly well thought of in certain circles.

From an novitiate's perspective, it's tough to tell the difference.

Plus, randomness is good.

My image of Pandora is of a workshop where guys sit down and "score" tunes so that they can be sorted and grouped. Now, once one is in a groove that meets specific criteria, all sorts of odd associations can come up (like, how did I get pegged as someone who might like Bay City Rollers? I mean, aside from the bowl haircut. And the knee length shorts. And the plaid).

PS. My daughter was shocked when I mentioned Mates of State, so, you know, what do I know? Next to nothing, but learning.

Bubble intact.

David "Member in Good Standing, Lindsay Lohan Fan Club" Hammond

I loves Pandora – it’s educational, it’s fun, and I can listen to old AC/DC without embarrassment (hey, I didn’t buy the crap album; it just “came up on” my Van Halen station).

So, I’m thinking of getting a small Pandora-ready device to listen to as I sit in my garden on summer evenings, nibbling ribs, sipping Barolo, and pondering the beauties of nature and tech death slop thrash.

Chumby looks easy and highly portable…plus, seems like I’d be able to pull up Youtube for a little after-dinner entertainment.

http://www.chumby.com/pages/learn_overview

Open, as always, to suggestion.

At Sweet Baby Ray’s a few weeks ago, Barry Sorkin asked “Am I the last person to know about Pandora?”

Don’t feel like Barry. Check out Pandora. It’s jazzfood-approved.

Check out the Squeezebox Boom:

http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_boom.html

Not only can it do pandora (with pandora subscription), but it can also get music from your local network, from Rhapsody (with subscription, probably the best all-you-can-eat music service), slacker internet radio, sirius internet radio, classical.com, etc.

And you can control it with an iphone.

There are also non-boombox versions, of course, if you already have a nice speaker setup.

gleam wrote:Check out the Squeezebox Boom:

http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_boom.html

Not only can it do pandora (with pandora subscription), but it can also get music from your local network, from Rhapsody (with subscription, probably the best all-you-can-eat music service), slacker internet radio, sirius internet radio, classical.com, etc.

And you can control it with an iphone.

There are also non-boombox versions, of course, if you already have a nice speaker setup.

Yeah, I checked the Squeezbox; it's half-again as expensive and bigger. And I don't have an iPhone...yet.

Thanks for the input, Ed.

PS. Did you notice Pandora now has advertisements? (15 sec spots, every 30 minutes or so...not bad).

I hadn't seen this thread before and am not sure of the connection between Pandora and food here (though it's kind of cool that Tim Westergren chimed in)... Perhaps this has been mentioned elsewhere on LTH, but just in case it hasn't:

A Pandora station of bands with food names

David Hammond wrote:I set up an Ella Fitzgerald station ... so now I'm a Doris Day fan. Like I said, disturbing.

I can't listen to Ella Fitzgerald any more without wondering if it's really David Sedaris. Talk about disturbing.

Katie wrote:

David Hammond wrote:I set up an Ella Fitzgerald station ... Like I said, disturbing.
Hammond

I can't listen to Ella Fitzgerald any more without wondering if it's really David Sedaris. Talk about disturbing.

Billie Holiday, you mean?

Oh, right, Billie Holiday. And the Oscar Mayer song.

Katie wrote:And the Oscar Mayer song.

I like the way the food theme continues to weave, though subtly, through this conversation.

I just noticed this thread. I listen to Pandora on my Sonos Player. Sonos is a multi room music system that wirelessly connects to your computer and streams music throughout your house, either to stand alone units or through a stereo set up. I have it linked to a network attached storage device (nasd) that I use as a music server. Sonos also allows you to stream internet radio, Sirius satellite radio, Rhapsody, etc. Sonos has the best remote control I have ever seen for this type of system and can be rigged to work off of your iphone. If you are a music lover like me and have a large digital music library (I have 75,000 mp3s in my nasd) and want to stream Pandora, Sirius, etc all through one device you will love Sonos. It is a bit expensive but I love it.

Just noticed something new on Pandora this a.m. I listen to it daily at work. I love how I can switch from Bob Marley to Sublime to Miles Davis depending on my mood. I love hearing new artists I might not have known about otherwise. Today, I reached my 40 hour/month limit. I didn't know I had a music quota, but I guess I do. I was notified that it will cost 99 cents to continue through month-end or $36 to listen for the year. Not a bad deal, just not free. I know there are other music sites, but I loved "my" free Pandora.

janeyb wrote:Today, I reached my 40 hour/month limit. I didn't know I had a music quota, but I guess I do.

Yeah, Pandora seems to have implemented that cap within the last few weeks. I've been listening to Pandora at work probably about 6-7 hours per day, 5 days a week for a few years now, so I can say pretty definitely this limit is new. They also added (reasonably unobtrusive, not too frequent) audio ads a few months back. Looks like the free lunch has ended. But even if it's not free anymore, the prices aren't bad.

I still love Pandora, and stream it at my desktop computer and at the dinner table through Netflix...but at the desk, I find the pictures of extremely attractive women who want dates, kind of, oddly, creepy. Alas, that is the price we pay for excellent tunes tailored to our musical DNA.