An open letter to anyone not wanting to leave their houses today, and to those inextricably linked to their laptops–especially the music-heads: Have you tried Pandora.com? I know I already mentioned this website yesterday, but I was as of then just a dabbler. Twenty-four hours later and I’m a full-fledged pro. Pandora lets you enter a song or an artist you like and then, magically, “the music genome project” cranks out similar-sounding songs and artists, T.I.Y.L.-style. I entered “Tired of Being Alone” by Al Green, which conjured up some jazzy yet soulful tunes by The Rhondels, The Mad Lads, Percy Sledge, and, sadly, Billy Joel. (But I was able to click “I don’t like it” the second I caught wind of what was coming–“Easy Money.” Pandora then moved it along to the next song.)
I also made “stations” a la Joni Mitchell (Ani Difranco, Beth Orton, even one gawd-awful cover of “Big Yellow Taxi” by Amy Grant); Guided By Voices (Sonic Youth and countless same-sounding indie guitar-rock songs–this has not been my favorite station); and Buck Ownes (Jim Ed Brown, Merle Haggard, Charley Pride, Yeehaw!). So taken by the Buck Owens jag, I even tried to make a station inspired by The Mavericks’ hit, “All You Ever Do is Bring Me Down,” but that just turned-up a disastrous Garth Brooks/Toby Keith mix, which I abandoned immediately. Eclecticism has its risks.
Plus, Pandora’s totally legal since the entire sight was designed to inspire knee-jerk spending at amazon.com. Genius!
Leave a Reply Cancel reply