Enjoying Music Online

Wow do I love Pandora! No I am not talking about the Swedish dance queen, Pandora, nor the Mexican trio, Pandora, seen to the right.

From their FAQ:

Q: What is Pandora?

Pandora is a music discovery service designed to help you enjoy music you already know, and to help you discover new music you'll love.

It's powered by the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken, the Music Genome Project: a crazy project started back in early 2000 to capture the complex musical DNA of songs using a large team of highly-trained musicians.

Just tell us one of your favorite songs or artists and we'll launch a streaming station to explore that part of the musical universe.

This service is beautiful and effortless as it serves up an entire genres' worth of tasty tunes that you can specify and switch with the click of the button. No more hunting for that amazing playlist you made last year or relying on the random feature of your favorite media player to satisfy your eclectic tastes. Just type in the artist you want to hear and Pandora serves up unlimited hours of music similar in style.

Now you would think that this type of service might turn up a lot of duds within the genre, which can happen, but it has wonderful customization options that can tell it that you dislike a song and it will factor that into what it plays from then on (on that station at least). You can also tell it which songs rock and these will come up more often along with similar songs.

The free version will allow you all the features of the paid version just with advertising on the actual page but I haven't seen a single ad yet thanks to AdBlock Plus.

You can also capture every song on Pandora (along with other nifty features) with the handy Pandora's Jar. Pandora's Jar also works with the similar service, Last.fm which I have yet to explore. If you are looking strictly for great Electronica, another source is the consistently good, Proton Radio.

A few of my favorite stations on Pandora?

• Bonobo
• Cut Chemist
• Bebel Gilberto
• Ulrich Schnauss
• Make Love (by Daft Punk)
• Chemical Brothers

Some songs I have discovered and liked so much that I bookmarked them:

• Heat The Pot by Dreadzone
• Life, Rain, Fall by TM Juke
• Beat The Clock by Bob Sinclair
• Something In My Eye by Corduroy
• F*** Me On The Dancefloor by Disco D Ft. Princess Superstar
• Facing The Sun by Teebee, Maldini & Vegas
• Transmission by Replica
  
  
  Where do you find music?