OT: Pandora
 

Dee Gee, Pandora is the greatest thing.

Here's how it works, music-loving people.

I haven't fully explored it, but what I did was type in an artist, and a radio station was created based on what music it thought I would like. If you create 3 stations with 3 artists, i.e. Tom Waits, Leon Russell, and Randy Newman, you can create a mix station with all three. But the greatest thing is that I'm listening to artists that I love and have never heard of! And I don't have to go out and get the CD... the artists are paid per song from advertising.

I tried to type in an obscure artist... "Chi Coltrane", and the station rocked. There wasn't much of Chi in there, because she didn't do much, but the other artists the station chose were quite similar in appeal.

I just found out I can get this station on my cell phone, so it opens up worlds much better than my ipod, as every song will be a total surprise! I even heard a modern cover of "trailer for sale or rent" and it was good!

It rocks. Check it out. Thanks DG.

www.pandora.com


And now it's playing Zappa!!!! How did it know I love Zappa???? :D:D:D

You're so welcome! I think Pandora is the best thing I've discovered on line since finding the 50+ Forum! :)

WOW! Thanks. You guys rock!!!!!!!!:)

I can't get it to do anything.

BTW, I've been listening to Tom Waits "Orphans" CD collection lately. Good, dark, scary stuff.

Did you click on "create a new station"? It will then ask you to type in a song or artist. It will do the rest. (I adore Tom Waits)

I just mated Chi Coltrane with Rickie Lee Jones! The first offspring was Tori Amos!

I wonder what you'd get if you matched Pavarotti with Willie Nelson?

this is going to be hours of fun.

You have to have cookies enabled, and you have to fill out a one screen form with your sex and age and zipcode, etc. Otherwise it won't work.

The other thing is these are deep tracks... it's not stuff you've heard on the radio.

If you're curious, type in Babes in Toyland. The drummer has been one of my best friends since Jr. High. Not really 50+ material, so only do it if you're really curious.

Working now. I had to disable Flashblocker

Cool. I put in John Hiatt, Muddy Waters and Uncle Tupelo and now it's playing early Allman Brothers. I Musta Done Somebody Wrong.

You can give songs a thumbs up or a thumbs down, and it will help fine tune the songs you can get.

Also, like with Chi Coltrane, I was going off on this bad 60's path into kind of a pop thing, so I chose to add to the station a more modern tone. It's kind of like Tivo for songs.

They have a great selection of Louis Prima stuff!

You know how to pick 'em.

John Hiatt is AWESOME! Thanks for the lead! I can see where it got early Allman brothers from John Hiatt and Muddy Waters, but not Uncle Tupelo...

Here's a link to some tips... it says to give a thumbs up about 1 out every 5 songs, and not to give too many thumbs down. http://www.ehow.com/how_2031307_mult...ndora.com.html

My favorite newly discovered artist so far, VERY remniscent of Robert Johnson in the first song I heard, but not in others:


Keb' Mo'
Biography
Keb' Mo' draws heavily on the old-fashioned country blues style of Robert Johnson, but keeps his sound contemporary with touches of soul and folksy storytelling. He writes much of his own material and has applied his acoustic, electric, and slide guitar skills to jazz- and rock-oriented bands in the past as well. Born Kevin Moore in Los Angeles to parents of Southern descent, he was exposed to gospel music at a young age. At 21, Moore joined an R&B band later hired for a tour by Papa John Creach and played on three of Creach's albums. Opening for jazz and rock artists such as the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jefferson Starship, and Loggins & Messina helped broaden Moore's horizons and musical abilities. Moore cut an R&B-based solo album, Rainmaker, in 1980 for Casablanca, which promptly folded. In 1983, he joined Monk Higgins' band as a guitarist and met a number of blues musicians who collectively increased his understanding of the music. He subsequently joined a vocal group called the Rose Brothers and gigged around L.A. 1990 found Moore portraying a Delta bluesman in a local play called Rabbit Foot and later playing Robert Johnson in a docudrama called Can't You Hear the Wind Howl? He released his self-titled debut album as Keb' Mo' in 1994, featuring two Robert Johnson covers, 11 songs written or co-written by Moore, and his guitar and banjo work. His second album, Just Like You, was equally well received. Slow Down followed in 1998 and Door was issued two years later. Big Wide Grin followed in 2001, while 2004 saw the release of two albums, Keep It Simple and Peace...Back by Popular Demand. Suitcase was issued in 2006 on Red Ink Records. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide

Oooooh, I think I've found a way to new music for my Spinning classes! It's too late for me to try it now (I teach at 6 a.m.:eek:) but I'll check it out tomorrow. Your comments are very encouraging, especially as blues=good music to Spin to. My current profile has Stevie Ray Vaughn and Delbert McClintock included.

I can hardly wait!

Red Rider, the ads on the side are from companies who have stations you can listen to. Nike has a workout station that may be worth listening to.

Even better!

Thanks, Solveg!

I really like the first 2 albums from Keb'Mo'. Not so much after those.

John Hiatt has been a favorite of mine (and my wife's) for many years. If you ever get a chance to see him live, go for it. Trust me on this one.

+1 Almost like he was on a production schedule and had to get new stuff out....

Very cool site. I typed in "the Ventures" and its playing all kinds of surfy instro stuff. Thanks for the link, guys.

Something you might want to check. When I hooked into this site, my system slowed considerably. With a little investigation I found that fully 1/3 of my availalbe RAM was being used by this system/site/program. Hence, I'm finding it difficult to run this while having multiple program open.

I just checked. Without Pandora running, Safari used 274 megs of memory. Now that it's running, it's at 280... maybe you were checking bandwidth?

How doe one check these things? (On a Mac, if possible)

I went to my Activity Monitor. I found Safari, which was the only thing using any sizable chunk of memory. Now, I just started it again, and it's using 456 megs, which is a quarter of my memory. But when I turn Pandora off, it goes to 458. The Safari memory jumps all over the place anyway, depending on whether it's loading a page.

BUT if you look over to the "% of CPU" column, it jumps from 14% to 23% with Pandora running, and with it off it ranges between

WOW

I'm going to check back in. I was watching the % without Pandora, and it was in the 12-19% range. Started Pandora and it went to 14-23%. But when I turned it off, it went down to 2-5%. So I'll keep watching this and report in. It may very well suck up a ton of memory.

As a comparison, though, running itunes uses between 10 and 15% of my CPU (2 gig laptop), so it's not that much more of a hit.

Gary Puckett & The Union Gap...yeah!

This is absolutely too cool.

My Activity Monitor shows Camino (my browser) using 128 without Pandora, and 139 with it. No big deal.

Blues all last night, doo woop all afternoon. Too Cool! :)

I love it when something like this makes EVERYONE happy! Do you realize how few things in life are capable of pleasing EVERYONE????
:):):)

Incredible. I have Nils Lofgren, Neil Young, Steely Dan, Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris mix going right now. I am so very glad I read this thread.

Its a flash app.

I've been using it for about a year I think. Its got some kinda feature for sharing stations - I've never used it but it sounds like you might like my deadhead station.

Got stations for 70s pop, 80s new wave, current "alt" and bluegrass too

Seems like the more you listen the more varied the stuff gets.

But when it starts stealing all our passwords and banking info, we're blaming you and DG. ;)

No problem there. Start juicing. It blocks all that stuff. Something to do with fiber or something. :D