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So Pandora is great for some things. I never listen to the radio anymore and am really not up on current artists. I liked the song they kept playing in the Covert Affairs promo ads, so I looked it up and then made a Florence and the Machine station which has found me some great music I enjoy.
But sometimes it's just inexplicable. Like I made a Mormon Tabernacle Choir station thinking I would get recommendations of great choral music. Well, it plays some MoTab and a bunch of schmaltzy Mormon pop/solo artists. Blecch. So I then used the "add variety" feature to put in some other choral/symphonic groups that I thought would be more in line w/ what I'm looking for. That helped -- but I've just listened to a group of about 5 polka/accordion songs. Polka? Really?
Although it created a fun moment when I had to figure out what movie "The Pennsylvania Polka" reminded me of. It should have been obvious, but it took me a while to come up w/ Groundhog Day. In my mind it was somehow associated w/ Meg Ryan.
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Pandora is a neat site but you have to get an idea for how the engine works to get it to do what you want. I would NOT advise using the "add variety" button.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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It generalizes too much. If you read through the FAQ, there are some good tips for setting up stations.
One thing I do is use just a song as a seed, not a band. Pick a song that is the TYPE of song you like. Of course, many of the songs it will pick for you will be songs you don't like so you have to get the songs and bands you don't like OUT of your station through judicious use of the dislike button. If it plays something you like but don't want to hear on that station or are just tired of it, use the tired button. That removes it for 30 days I think. There are many other tips in the faq.
Regardless, it is still going to play stuff you don't like or don't think fits in with your choices but hey, that's radio. I have found some real gems in there too.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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Pandora hasn't been available in France for a while now, but at least this thread made me (re)discover "Dog days are over" by Florence and the Machine. I'm sure I heard it before, but I have no idea when and where... o_O (hate it when this happens)
So thanks, Uprooted, both for the thread and the mention of the band. Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Thanks for the tips, Wingracer, I will remember them and will read through the FAQ one of these days. I think it only allows 3 dislikes a day, and I sometimes have it on for hours while I work, so I'm pretty judicious w/ my use of it.
Corwin, now "The Dog Days Are Over" is playing through my head again --let's see if it can drive out the accordion music!
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Uprooted: Thanks for the tips, Wingracer, I will remember them and will read through the FAQ one of these days. I think it only allows 3 dislikes a day, and I sometimes have it on for hours while I work, so I'm pretty judicious w/ my use of it.
You can dislike as much as you want, it will just only skip the song like 6 times per day I think, or 3 per hour. You still want to use the button to refine your station. When you hit dislike, it never plays that song on that station again. I think 2 dislikes to the same band eliminates that band from your station.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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I gave up on Pandora after putting in Marcy's Playground and getting Nirvana, with the only real link was the time frame of each band. That and Citizen Cope should never lead into Ben Harper. Ever.
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
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Just now it played me a truly charming polka with the chorus "I don't want her, you can have her, she's too fat for me, she's too fat for me, she's too fat for me." Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I can think of a lot of unpleasant things I'd rather do than listen to polka. Don't think I could sit through it waiting for a better song to come on.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Sometimes I get a kick out of it -- like that Pennsylvania Polka one -- but most of them I've hit dislike on and they seemed to have mostly gone away. This is the first one that came up for a long time, and I was busy working and probably never would have noticed it but somehow the words filtered into my consciousness.
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Start a station from a song. Add additional seeds. This doesn't mean 'liking.' It means specifically editing the station details and adding new songs to the channel seeds. Seeds open up a lot of variety along many multitudes of what the engine considers similarities in tone or production, so stick to a consistent theme unless you want to have a single Uberchannel with everything you like in general.
Then, make good use of the Dislike button. Once you've trimmed the edges enough, the station falls in line.
A straightforward way to jumpstart a genre/mood channel is to pick 5-10 songs you already know you like within that genre/mood, put them all in as channel seeds at the start, then go from there. Pandora will usually satisfy.
And what wingracer says is true, especially in the consideration of the fact that pandora's best utility is to expose you to new songs. For libraries of songs you already know you like, export them to Grooveshark.Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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