Tired of carrying around your iPod or mp3 player? Just bought that brand new smart phone or simply need to expand your musical interests?Try Pandora Radio, both an Internet website (www.pandora.com) and a smart phone application available on Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Palm Pre, and Windows Mobile.
Pandora is the next generation of radio, known better as “Internet radio,” allowing you to create your own stations that play songs that cater to your tastes.
Its mission? “To play only music you’ll love,” as stated on their website, and I agree.
Enter an artist or song, and it’ll automatically play songs that are similar, for a simple payment of a few short commercials at very reasonable intervals.
The website does not require an account, but having one will allow you to keep your favorite self-made stations on reserve and bookmark songs, allowing you to refer to them later in short demo samples.
Each song has links to share via Facebook, Twitter, or email, and includes a link to purchase the song on iTunes or Amazon.com, as well as full title and artist information.
Biographical information on the artist of each song is also included.
If you have a smart phone with a 3G or 4G data plan, a free Pandora application will give you access to your account and serve as an inexpensive or lazy way to listen to nearly any genre of music anywhere that has reception.
From classical Debussy to popular Lady Gaga to vintage Beatles, Pandora has it and will even introduce you to songs and artists you didn’t even know you’d love.
If you really love it, subscribe for a yearly fee of $36 to avoid commercials and gain access to Pandora One, granting increased audio quality, custom skins, and an installable desktop application.
Pandora truly is a model for the future of radio. It’s a brilliantly interactive piece of software that has access to millions of songs, each at stellar quality.
However, there are a few downsides. You can’t play specific songs outside of their demo duration or skip backwards in the playlist. You can skip a song if you don’t like it, but there’s a skip limit to prevent overloading the site.
Upgrading to Pandora One will increase your skip limit, allowing you to skip more often per hour.
Sadly, you can’t use Pandora simply as a method to listen to favorite songs without paying for them. I’ve found it’s a great way to keep your style of music constant and fresh, and it also allows you to discover new artists and songs you didn’t even know about.
Pandora has stolen my heart and is an amazing tool for listening to music. Whether I’m on the way to school, tired of my iTunes playlists, or bored in the computer lab, it’s always there to keep the soundtrack to my life fresh and interesting, and I highly recommend it.