Opening Pandora's Box, Volume III- NSP Radio

From The Commons on Flickr. Most awesome photo and hat, ever.

It’s been a week of Pandora Radio listening, and I have held true to my goal. Even though I’ve reached for iTunes many times wanting to hear a specific song, I have focused my listening completely on Pandora. Which really, really sucks when you want to listen to some pure background music but have to hear some blaring Guns and Roses track for the millionth time in your life instead.

As noted in my last installment, Pandora focused almost completely on indie rockers for the first 10 songs, with some classic ultra-soft rock thrown in for good measure. The only songs that picked up the tempo much were screechy alternative kids trying to sing, but failing miserably. The station was turning out alright, but I wasn’t exactly impressed so far.

Opening Pandora's Box, Volume II- The First 10 Songs

Public Domain painting by John William Waterhouse. Found at http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Pandora's_Box.jpg.

To recap, I am only listening to music on my computer through Pandora internet radio this week. This is in attempt to see if I can train a station to actually work with my musical tastes. They are so disparate and random at times that I wondered if the service could truly adapt. Supposedly, Pandora learns what you like in music and plays only things that match up to those preferences.

I decided to record my first 100 songs played, just to get an exact idea of the music presented early on in the process. I also made sure to rate every song in that first 100 as like or dislike, to make sure I gave Pandora plenty of data on me to utilize. Technically, you’re only supposed to like something when you like “all parts” of it, which I started to do when it got past that first 100. As a side note, I do in fact like all parts of “House of the Rising Sun,” and give a little cheer when it comes on the radio.