www.pandora.com – the awesome streaming radio site that is free.

A while back I had tried it out but wasn’t too happy with what I was hearing… it uses a system where you give “thumbs up” to music you like and likewise a “thumbs down” to music you don’t like.  I was finding that I wasn’t hearing anything that I didn’t already have in my collection or heard way too many times on the radio.  So I stopped using it until just a few weeks ago.

I decided to try to a whole new genre compared to what I already listened to.  Say what you want, but I get a kick out of the Lady Gaga “Bad Romance” and I have listened to pop music, well, ever, so I thought it would be a good way to hear some of the hits I had likely missed out on.  So, I fired up Pandora, started a station with that song and proceded to thumb up everything I liked on that station.

That’s the wrong way to do it.  The station quickly lost its focus from pop dance beats into something more resembling a pop variety station.  Fed up with that, I decided to move back to my Metallica channel to see if I could salvage it.  I undid all my previous ratings and saved the “thumbs up” for only the stuff I really liked.  Evntually it happened upon some Iced Earth, which is great… Hammerfall, which I also really enjoy.  My Metallica station has morphed into a late nineties to current thrash/power metal station (artists like Dream Evil, Testament and Dragon Fire) with some Anthrax, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest thrown in for good measure.  Giving death metal genre songs a couple thumbs down and the consistentcy of quality has been great and I keep getting introduced to new bands.

Thanks Pandora =)  I am actually thinking of buying a premium account for the ad removal and the higher bit rate music.  I don’t know if that works with all of the set top boxes, like the Roku, that act as Pandora receivers for your more typical home stereo, but I am hopeful…

Check out Pandora if you haven’t yet, it is a great way to enjoy a lot of free music.

–Nat