Easy come, easy go

Argh. This article on Ars Technica says that Pandora, the streaming music service I wrote about last week may be shutting down soon due to exorbitant fees imposed by a royalty hike on internet radio. Considering that no frills Pandora is free, I suppose it was too good to last forever.

The thing that gets me is that the Big Fat Corporations (BFCs) are likely to kill off entire revenue streams in the quest for the Big Bucks. By leaning on all the little guys to try to squeeze every possible dollar out of them, they’ll force innovative players like Pandora out of business. Let’s see… less income at reasonable rates vs. no income at Greedy Bastard rates… gee tough call there.

Oh well, this geek update actually turned into one those rants where I really have no idea how to change the way things are. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

In any case, check out www.pandora.com while you still can!

Music has DNA?

The original concept for elementalgeek was to highlight mainstream tech stuff that I think is cool and possibly useful for others. While I definitely have geeky tendencies, I’m not exactly on the bleeding edge of technology so from time to time I’ll be featuring stuff that’s probably been out for a while but falls in the “it’s new to me” category that hopefully you’ll still find interesting.

I was recently introduced to Pandora Radio, a streaming music website. You start by choosing an artist or song that you like. Based on your selection, Pandora will play other songs it thinks you might like. You give each song a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to influence what plays next. What sets Pandora apart from other internet radio stations is that it’s not based solely on music genre or other user’s playlists, but rather the “DNA” of individual songs.

As part of the “Music Genome Project,” the folks running Pandora have broken down the attributes of songs into “genes”, properties that combine to describe what a song actually sounds like. When I’m in a pop/R&B mood, I apparently prefer “mild rhythmic syncopation, a vocal centric aesthetic, and a subtle use of vocal harmony.” On a rock day, it’s “hard rock roots or punk influence, minor key tonality, extensive vamping and heavy electric rhythm guitars.” Who knew?

What does this mean? Not surprisingly, starting with Paramore (OK, yeah I admit it…chick rock rules!) led to Evanescence, Linkin Park and Fallout Boy, but also to songs by Flyleaf and Fireflight, stuff that I doubt I’d have ever discovered on my own.

Initially, you may discover that Pandora repeats songs fairly often. You can broaden the range of songs that play by adding additional songs or artists to your base genome selection or simply ban songs temporarily by using the intuitive on-screen controls.

The next time you’re in the mood to listen to your favorite tunes, rediscover forgotten songs or explore new artists, give Pandora try.