7 Reasons Pandora Sucks

Since Tim Westergern, the founder of Pandora, has been in the press for the battle to save internet radio these days, it seems appropriate to write up his project--one of the best known and most popular internet radio experiments. Pandora's capstone, called the Music Genome Project, has the ambitious/foolish purpose of mapping the musical "genes" of every song in the history of the world--ridiculous, in my estimation, and impossible at that. They also more modestly claim to help people find music they like. While the service offers a lot of benefits (free streaming in the U.S.) and may be improving (if it survives those proposed royalty hikes), Pandora's whole premise is flawed. Here are 7 of the reasons Pandora sucks:

1. Songs are not scientific specimens. So far Pandora has analyzed over 10,000 songs on the basis of over 2000 "focus traits" which include 400 technical attributes like rhythm syncopation, vocal counterpoint, and key tonality. All the problems with Pandora stem from their focus on this method because songs are not scientific specimens readily dissected by "technicians"—they are art. I don’t think there is a good reason behind "objectively" evaluating these songs on technical traits because they are valued for their subjective appeal

2. DJing is an art that “musical genes” couldn't possibly inform and Pandora feels randomized. Early free-form DJs and the best of today’s performer-DJ blend the element of surprise and rewarding anticipation in making a playlist. They play off subtle qualities or themes to make seamless transitions and perfect matches. Susan Douglas talks about this in her book Listening In and I will expand on her theories in a future post. If a machine merely replicates the genre you're interested in, as Pandora does, you may be comfortable, but you're not breaking any new ground or in for a mind-expanding song from left-field.

3. The catalog is excessive in some areas and deficient in others. You could stumble upon thousands of terrible bands or singer-songwriters (hello Modern English, Buckcherry) but there's no classical music and few selections from abroad. The amount you can hear from selected artists is also limited. This directly results in my biggest issue with Pandora...

4. Pandora plays a lot of crap because there is no discernible quality control mechanism. And I tested this theory with a wide range of artists, so it’s not MY taste that is to blame here. Because Pandora’s engine finds artists with similar technical attributes, they often find copyists who sound terrible because the style they are trying to emulate is unique and hard to pull off well. This brings me to my next issue….

5. You can only skip 6 times an hour. When I shuffle on my iPod, which includes songs I should like since they're on my iPod, I might skip 6 times in 1 minute trying to find the song I want to hear. When there is all this bad music thrown in that I don't know and won't like, of course I'm going to want to skip more than 6 times.

6. I cannot and will not be programmed by Clear Channel, Pandora, or any other computer program! This may just be a personal issue because I am a picky, avid music consumer. Just like I hate Clear Channel for using computer-generated playlists, I don't like the idea that my diverse interests can similarly be dissected and summarized so easily by a computer program, even if it is supposedly designed specifically for me. Sure, there are personalization mechanisms with Pandora: you can thumbs up or thumbs down songs to try to narrow the “station” more to your liking, but that’s time consuming and you only get those measley 6 skips an hour. Kids have always defined themselves by their musical tastes. It's one way to create an identity, and if that identity can be imposed from without by a computer, that doesn't make you unique. There's something enterprising about today's music hunters--they go out there and they find their music and stake their claim to that hard-earned musical property. "This is my band" or "I found this band before MTV did." With this program, it feels like it's all out there for anyone to randomly stumble upon.

7. Pandora is insulting. There is an assumption implicit in the program that a listener’s tastes are limited to songs that sound just like the artist they choose. And the simple fact that Pandora plays me such hideous crap means they think I might like it. When I somehow get played Creed or Nickleback, I don't only feel offended. I feel aurally assaulted.

What has your experience been like with Pandora? Am I missing something here?