Internet radio has been gaining popularity quickly, especially among college students who spend so much time in front of a computer screen. Whether you are working on that first paper of the semester or checking Facebook, it is nice to have some tunes in the background. Customizable Internet radio stations like Pandora, Slacker Radio and last.fm provide a sometimes-needed change from the iTunes shuffle, and is usually free – and free is always attractive to students.
A major player in the Internet radio world is Pandora – a free service that allows users to create a custom-tailored radio station. Users can type in an artist or song that they like to create a radio station that will play music similar to the artist or song that was initially entered.
“I can just put it on and listen to whatever I want and I get to discover new artists that I’ve never listened to before,” stated freshman Tracy Calvacca. The station doesn’t select these artists because they look alike, or are the same “genre.” What track the custom station plays next is based on a comprehensive music analysis done by musicians with trained ears who know the basic musical components of a song.
Pandora is supported by advertisements that come in the form of banners as they would on any other website – not like commercials on a radio station. Pandora is available ad-free with a subscription, $36 a year.
Free radio allows you the same control of the station that a subscription does with the exception of a longer time-out period. What that means is that after one hour of no input from the listener, the station will stop. Subscribing will let you listen continuously without having to give input for five hours.
Input is considered skipping a song or clicking around on the page. Both free and subscription users can bookmark an artist or song, as well as purchase music on demand. Signing up for a free account on Pandora will let you save these settings and reference them later on any computer.
In addition to this, you can give a song thumbs up or thumbs down, or skip a song up to six times per station per day. Freshman Gillian Decker considers the limited skips a big flaw, along with the idea that “you can’t really request a song.”
According to Pandora.com, licensing agreements prevent users from being able to play a song on demand, or to fast forward or rewind songs. For the most part, however, when you type in an artist their song will usually come up first. If not, similar artists will play – and you may just discover great new music.
Pandora is a product of an extensive music-categorizing effort called the Music Genome Project. Created and developed by musician Tim Westergren, the project takes songs and breaks them down into their basic musical structure like the Human Genome Project breaks DNA down into genes.
I spoke with Westergren over the phone about how he came up with the idea for the Music Genome Project and eventually Pandora. Westergren, a piano player with a B.A. in computer acoustics and recording technology from Stanford University, was 34 when he began the project. A lover of a broad range of music (by broad I mean Beatles, Ben Folds, Dixie Chicks, Oster Peterson and everything from punk to bluegrass), Westergren had already worked extensively in the music world by this time.
Westergren spent 10 years as a “working musician” on the band scene. He saw how hard it was for a band to get “exposure and promotion.” Some working bands and artists will play shows upon shows and do tours and tours with nothing gained at all. Pandora allows musicians to find an audience – and vice versa.
Finding an audience can help an unknown band to be put on the radar, or increase the turnout at gigs. Westergren also worked for years as a film composer. “I thought a lot about how music was constructed,” he said.
Westergren wondered why people like certain music. He began to think about the “musicology” and how underlying components of songs could link one song to another. At first, he began to break down songs to their basic components as his own as a sort of side project. Soon after, Westergren started the Music Genome Project, what he called “a process of trial and error.”
“We made a list from scratch and refined it little by little,” he said. The list, literally written on a large white board, contained hundreds of the basic qualities of songs. He called on musicians he knew and worked with them to expand the project. The more songs they classified and cataloged, the larger the company grew.
That was nine years ago. Today, according to Pandora.com, the company employs a team of 50 music analysts who catalog songs based on 400 different musical qualities. Westergren serves as the company’s Chief Strategy Officer.
Pandora harnesses the power of the Music Genome Project and brings it to listeners in hopes of introducing them to new artists that fit their musical taste. When asked if musicians have seen any kind of increase in sales since becoming a part of Pandora, Westergren replied, “Oh yeah!”
“We haven’t been responsible for making one artist’s career, but we have heard feedback that Pandora has helped increase their sales,” he said. Westergren also talked about how lesser known artists have had fans come up to them and say that they found them through Pandora. That was one of Westergren’s goals in creating Pandora – to help those working musicians get publicity and exposure.
What does the future hold for Pandora? Westergren plans to have Pandora “continue growing, and fast.” Currently, Pandora is available on the iPhone and a select number of AT’T, Sprint and Windows Mobile phones (free for the iPhone, but other phones come with extra cost).
Westegren hopes to expand Pandora’s availability to include more mobile devices and even make Pandora available right in your car. Today, Pandora faces challenges in the market from other free Internet radio stations like last.fm and Slacker Radio. Both boast the same customized stations that Pandora offers listeners. However, both stations work a little differently than Pandora.
Slacker is less about discovering new music and more about customizing your station to what you already like. It allows you to type in an artists or song, and to either take their suggestions and play the pre-selected artists on the station, or it allows you to customize your station manually.
Slacker comes up with a list of related artists and lets you refine the list to include only artists you want to hear. However, advertising comes in the form of audio rather than banners, like on a radio station in your car. You cannot skip the advertisements, which pop up in the middle of your music shuffle. A paid upgrade ($3.99 a month), Slacker Radio Plus, offers ad-free listening as well as unlimited skips and song request.
Last.fm works more like a music social networking site. It allows you to create a profile with songs and artist you like, and links you to other people who share the same musical taste. You can comment about the music or share it you like with other people in the last.fm community.
Currently, Pandora is number one on the list of most popular free applications for the iPhone in the iTunes store. Slacker comes in at number five, while last.fm did not make the top 100. It really is more of a matter of preference and deciding which works the best for you.
Either way, discovering new music on the Internet can be something of a Pandora’s box situation – except with more positive results. Westegren’s own curiosity led to the Music Genome Project and eventually to Pandora Internet Radio, proving that your own curiosity can lend itself to something much greater.
