Pandora

I'm a little late to the game on this, but I've discovered a new-to-me site that I simultaneously love and despise.

The site is called Pandora. It's been around for years, and I've known about it for about nine months (Lisa introduced me to it), but I never really took the time to check it out until about six weeks ago. It's an online streaming radio site, and what makes it really great is that it allows you to create a radio "station" based on a favorite artist of yours, and then it streams music by that artist, sure, but also music from artists LIKE that artist. You can rate the music that it chooses with either a thumbs up or a thumbs down, and based on your rating the program "learns" your musical taste. So the more you use Pandora, the better it gets at giving you music you want to hear. You can even click a button to find out why it's giving you certain songs.

As I said, I both love and hate this site. I love it because it absolutely gives me the music I want to hear. I've created two stations so far: a Bruce Springsteen station and an Indigo Girls station (two of my favorite artists). The Bruce Springsteen station consistently delivers music I already know by musicians I like: Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Bob Seger (he's not my favorite, but the songs that Pandora dishes out are the ones I like), and similar artists. And I don't know many of the artists that my Indigo Girls station dishes out, but I love what I get. I've already found some new artists and I'm going to buy their music soon.

What I hate about the site is that it depresses me, because it makes me feel like I'm not an individual. I've always thought I had a really unique, eclectic musical taste, but it turns out that I'm pretty much exactly like every other Bruce Springsteen and Indigo Girls fan (except that I'm not a lesbian--at least I don't think I am). I don't like that my individuality can be so easily broken down and analyzed. It's sort of like the news story that came out in the middle of the week this past week that said that there is a gene that determines whether a male human is faithful to his wife or not. I don't WANT a gene to be determining that. I want my high moral standards and my love for my wife to be the reason I'm monogamous.

But it turns out that's not the case--it's all genetic code, like I'm some vast computer program. And my eclectic musical taste really comes down to the fact, as Pandora tells me, that I like "mellow rock instrumentations, folk influences, a subtle use of vocal harmony, major key tonality, and mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation."

Despite what adults hammered into my belief system when I was a kid, I'm not all that unique after all.