A friend of mine pointed me towards Pandora Radio with no small degree of enthusiasm. After procrastinating a week, I decided to give it a shot. Here are my impressions after working with the system for a few days.
The central idea behind Pandora Radio is the utilization of an extensive music categorization effort called the Music Genome Project:
Pandora is based on the Music Genome Project, the most sophisticated taxonomy of musical information ever collected. It represents over eight years of analysis by our trained team of musicologists, and spans everything from this past Tuesday's new releases all the way back to the Renaissance and Classical music.
Each song in the Music Genome Project is analyzed using up to 400 distinct musical characteristics by a trained music analyst. These attributes capture not only the musical identity of a song, but also the many significant qualities that are relevant to understanding the musical preferences of listeners. The typical music analyst working on the Music Genome Project has a four-year degree in music theory, composition or performance, has passed through a selective screening process and has completed intensive training in the Music Genome's rigorous and precise methodology. To qualify for the work, analysts must have a firm grounding in music theory, including familiarity with a wide range of styles and sounds.
Being the techno-geek that I am, I tested the system. Start off by entering the name of a song or an artist and the system will generate a custom "radio station" that plays music close to the characteristics they've used to describe bands and their songs. My friend challenged me to put something obscure in there for my first try so I obliged and entered
Blockhead, a fantastic generally down tempo instrumental hip-hop act.
I liked everything I heard for the next half hour! Granted, about a third of it was stuff I either already owned or was from artists I knew of, but I was thoroughly impressed. After marking down the musicians whose acquaintance I had just made, I tried another "station," entering Explosions in the Sky into the Create New Station form.
Boom. Tons of bands that were completely new to me and were very comparable to EITS. More bookmarking of cool music. I'm beginning to grasp the possibilities.
The next station I created was Mastodon. Given their unique combination of guitar playing, drumming, and song structure I was hoping for a gold mine of new metal. Alas, so far it hasn't put out anything special. And frankly, though I can see why Pandora picked them, Slayer really doesn't belong in the same category as Mastodon, Lamb of God, or Gojira. Might need to give it more time to sort out.
I moved towards an entirely different subgenre and created a Cinematic Orchestra station. Ah, bliss. Pandora nailed this one well. I look forward to hearing what else they'll toss my way.
Next up was Philip Glass. So far it's mixed. On one hand, I now know I need to buy the Donnie Darko film score, look into Glass's The Hours score, and check out more material from Arvo Pärt. On the other, I think classical music's general format will make it harder to understand the abilities of the composers and performers. The andante con moto movement in Beethoven's 5th Symphony doesn't reveal much about the allegro con brio that preceded it and I bet most people would have no idea that second movement is part of the 5th's famous opening. Need to experiment further with this on Pandora.
The Led Zeppelin station I created has so far been the biggest disappointment, even though I like everything it has played for me. It's just been, for lack of a better way of putting it, too cliché. Jimi Hendrix and Cream? I gave up after 30 minutes. I'm in this for new music, dammit. It's a weird feeling to find myself both liking the music and wanting something different.
After mentioning this to my friend, he noted that he gets better results with more obscure and less-known acts. Therefore, the next station I created was Laika and The Cosmonauts. Nothing but fun surf rock for the next hour. Awesome. Good bookmarking potential here.
These stations accumulate, by the way. It looks like you can create as many as you want. There's also a QuickMix station that will take all or selected stations you've created and randomize songs through a temporary station for you. Haven't tried it yet, but that's a neat feature.
You have some control over what the system sends you through your named stations. You have the option of marking a song as liked, unliked, or just not marked. The system will attempt to tailor future songs according to what you like and dislike. Once I realized this wasn't just a way to approve of Pandora's choices, I decided to give it an acid test.
I created a "Fresh Tendrils" station, named after the 12th track on Soundgarden's Superunknown. For me, that's one of those songs I'd need on a deserted island after the apocalypse wipes everyone else out. If Pandora could deliver songs like that, then I'd be super-happy.
Well, it didn't. Here's what the system played for me:
- "5 Year Winter" by Zao
- "Storm of Swords" by The Classic Struggle
- "Disaster of Decay" by Burden of Grief
- "Second Awakening (Live)" by Kreator
- "Pre-Supermodel" by Angel Hair
- "Distance is Darkness" by As I Lay Dying
- "Relentless" by Soldiers
With the exception of "Pre-Supermodel," this is a set list that sounds
nothing like "Fresh Tendrils." Even Angel Hair's song wasn't what I was seeking, but at least it wasn't a thrash-metal aggro affair. Sure, I discovered some potentially interesting bands, but I built this station in order to hear songs that have similar structure and tone to a specific song.
This is just one test and admittedly, this is a song that doesn't sound much like the rest of Soundgarden's catalogue. I need to give the system more tracks to see what it can do. But I vetoed everything except the Angel Hair track and the system kept sending me the same kind of stuff. It may be missing a crucial subjective component to its music categorizing system.
Anyway, just passing this along. I'm overall very thrilled with the possibilities and I've bookmarked more than ten albums for future purchase through my eMusic subscription. That's a lot more new music to look forward to than I had on Monday.
And, for those interested, here is my Pandora profile.