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Never in my life has something completely rewired the way I live my life as when I discovered Pandora. It was akin to someone finding Jesus. I know that a lot of people will find this post via a google search and think it’s “sacrilegious” that I’m likening a website to their Savior… I’m ok with that. I’m also okay with Jesus, he was one cool rabbi. Please don’t go evangelical on my comment form. Now that the niceties are out of the way let me explain myself.

I have never been really good at keeping a music library. I have a broad pallet for music and I will get in certain moods that requires certain genres. I hate iTunes, I hate Windows Media Player, other than the actual radio, I have little options. There are a number of options on the web for radio. I’ve tried a number of them. I can give you a run down of them and write a mini review but honestly, Pandora blows them all out of the water.

What is Pandora? “Pandora is an automated music recommendation and Internet radio service created by the Music Genome Project. Users enter a song or artist that they enjoy, and the service responds by playing selections that are musically similar. Users provide feedback on approval or disapproval of individual songs, which Pandora takes into account for future selections”.  – Wikipedia. In short Pandora is a customizable, intuitive radio station. It’s free and has very limited ads.  It gets smarter as you use it and will introduce you to new artists and one’s you’ve forgotten about. I use it every day for every mood, and I am a moody little boy.

If you go to my profile you’ll see a station called “Disc Golf Radio”, When I go out for a round I fire up Pandora on my phone and never have to touch it again till I’m climbing back in the car. Obviously this service if far beyond what radio has to offer. Think about how it’s pulled music out of a drought. Since the inception of radio have had to deal with the unfortunate consequence of advertisement. Pandora’s is minimal on their free subscription. If you buy the $32 annual subscription, you’ll never see an ad, not even when you’re using a mobile app. The quality of the music is very good, no it’s not studio quality, but it’s better than typical streaming audio, even when you’re using a mobile app.  This site is smart. They’ve paid attention to most, if not all, of the details.  The user interface is clean and fairly easy to use (this could use some attention), their mobile strategy has been thought out completely, they blog and travel to different music festivals to soft promote.