Pandora’s New “Genre Stations”
I’ve long been a user of the Internet radio station Pandora.com. I was immediately drawn to the freedom to create stations based on my favorite artists and the ability to completely fine-tune my station specifics. Being one of the first of its kind, it truly has revolutionized that way we listen to music (both online and offline).
Recently, Pandora added a feature called “genre stations” – which basically means each genre of music (electronica, hip-hop, country, etc) has it’s own radio station. This feature is not necesarily new; they simply revamped the service.
What really disappoints me, however, is the lack of effort put in to the “Electronic” category. The categories they give you are:
- Club / Dance
- Dubstep
- Dance Pop
- House
- Chill / Downtempo
- Trance
- Drum & Bass
- Dance Essentials
- Indie Dance
- Breaks
- Techno
As you can see, these “genre stations” lack any diversity, are redundant, and quite frankly bastardize the EDM genre. Aren’t “Dance Essentials” sort of like “Club / Dance” songs? Electro/house producer Deadmau5 is listed in multiple categories, causing confusion. Furthermore, I shuddered when I saw the word techno. Are you serious right now? A “techno” category?
Hopefully as EDM (Electronic Dance Music) gains more popularity, someone within Pandora will do a little homework and rework these categories. For now, anyway, you’re better off creating a station based on a particular artist you enjoy and upvoting/downvoting each track until the software learns what you like.
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