Pandora, the Greek equivalent of Eve,
was constructed collectively by all of the gods on Mount Olympus, who
each gave her a gift. Hermes, ever the innovator, bestowed upon her
the Internet. Thus Pandora Internet Radio was born.
It's a
glorious manifestation of the Music Genome Project, which has set out
to mathematize songs with the use of over 400 musical attributes. All
you do is enter a band or song name into Pandora, then some sort of
scientific wizardry happens behind the scenes, and out come songs
from bands with similar sounds. For free.
It works remarkably
well, which seems to legitimize math for me. For instance, create a
station based on Led Zeppelin and you'll get some Pearl Jam and The
Rolling Stones. Or if Barbra Streisand is more of your cup of tea,
you'll get The Carpenters and Melissa Manchester (yeah I'm not sure
who that is either).
If you don't like a song that pops up,
click on the down-turned thumb (a nearly universal sign of
displeasure) and the song is skipped. Give the same artist this
treatment twice and they won't appear again. Conversely, a thumbs-up
will make it a bit more likely that future songs will have even
closer musical traits to the current song.
The level of control is empowering, and advertisements are rare, making the experience far more enjoyable than broadcast radio. And though the Pandora of Greek myth unleashed evil into this world (aside from opening that box, she was apparently a very pleasant woman), Pandora Radio is a jackpot in this chaotic cyberspace of ours.
Want more? Check out our review on the Pandora iPhone app.
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