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Pandora.com > Randomly Specific Music Selections

by Keoni Chavez

Everyone loves music; this is universal. Yet between what you love and what I love lies a nearly untranslatable gulf. This is called personal aesthetic. How often has a friend of yours said, “You have to hear this band. They’re the greatest ever!”, only to find that upon listening, you have to wonder why your friend bothered to even call you up in the first place. Musical taste does not always transfer between people. Just because you like a song this does not mean that even your best friend will like it the same way.

And yet, it’s nearly impossible to distinguish those qualities that make a particular song worth listening to, much less your favorite song ever. It is this quality, however, that the people behind Pandora.com spent nearly 6 years researching. A highly motivated group of “musicians and music-loving technologists” set out to create, once and for all, a systematic approach to the question, “What makes music work?”

Their answer is the Music Genome Project (MGP). The MGP is a way to isolate and codify musical ‘genes’: specific elements of a song that make the song work. Some examples of this are “jazz influences,” “chromatic harmonic structure,” and “mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation.” By utilizing the MGP, the makers of Pandora.com have come up with a pretty thorough mechanism for determining a song you might like, based on a song you already like.

Pandora.com gets its name from the famous Pandora of Greek legend, though she was chosen not for the disastrous associations but for her spirit of curiosity. This same curiosity drives browsers of
the website.

The site’s interface is elegantly simple. A single window lets one access all relevant commands. The process is started by the user entering the name of a song or artist they like, therefore creating a ‘station.’ After a very short delay, an album by that artist, or featuring that song, pops up, along with those genes that identify the musical style. The music plays, and an icon featuring the album cover displays. On mousing over the icon, a little tray appears with 3 icons: a thumbs down, an upward-pointing arrow, and a thumbs up. Choosing either ‘thumbs’ icon tells Pandora to keep that artist or song in play, and teaches it the style of music you want to hear more of.

After the song finishes (the only way to skip the song is to choose ‘thumbs down’, meaning that you don’t want to pursue this artist—Pandora is not for true random sampling, as only 6 skips are allowed for a particular station within an hour), the next song appears. Choosing the upward-facing arrow provides a list of options for each song: ‘Why did you play this song?’ brings up a list of the relevant genes; ‘Bookmark this song’ adds the song to your profile page, which you can use to keep track of music you might want to buy, or send the list to your friends. Pandora has partnered with both Amazon.com and iTunes, so purchasing music is simple and easy.

Other features you can select from Pandora are “New Station,” “Buy” and “Backstage.” The first one lets you choose to start a new station based either on the song or artist currently playing. “Buy” allows you to choose from either Amazon.com or iTunes to purchase music from that artist. Using the “Backstage” option you can choose to read more on a particular artist, song, or album currently playing. In addition to a comprehensive review of the artist, or album, other work by that artist is displayed, with the option to listen to a snippet, or to add that section to your profile.

Finally, you can edit or change the parameters of the stations themselves by clicking on the arrow icon to the right of the station name. ‘Add more music to this station’ opens the range of what genes are currently in effect for that particular station, giving you more choices to find out what else is available to you to try. Other options include renaming, or deleting the station, and e-mailing the station to a friend.

Pandora.com is a welcome service for anyone who is looking to broaden their musical horizons. By approaching music from the angle that they have, namely, avoiding the emotional aspect of a song, Pandora has unlocked a new way for users to think about the music they love—and also the music they don’t yet know they love.