Pandora Rocks!

Raise your glasses and PRAISE Rachel Maddow (who was hosting The Al Franken Show on Friday) for turning me on to the Pandora “Music Genome Project”. I’ve been messing around with the Pandora player for an hour now and I must say that I’m impressed! It promises to become one of the coolest ways ever to waste time at work.

Here’s how it works: You go to the site, and the player asks you to name a song or an artist that you like. My first impulse, naturally, was to test it out on some obscure Scandinavian Metal. I didn’t get very far with that, so I decided to try something that I knew they would have and that I knew I would like. Miles Davis leapt to mind, so I typed him in and the player created a streaming “Radio Station” that played jazz based on my love for Miles Davis.

Of course, Davis had a long and varied career, so a play list based on his music could include a wide variety of artists and styles, but I wanted that classic slow, smoky, mellow-mellow vibe. When I didn’t like the second song (an orchestral Gene Krupa piece), I clicked on the “I don’t like this song” button and was then treated to Wayne Shorter as the player used my complaint to adjust its search criteria. A little more tweaking and now I’m listening to lots of great “smoky” jazz that I’ve never heard before, and ever song is exactly what I felt like listening to.

Very cool. Try it out next time you get pissed at the radio.