The RubeTube

When it comes to music, I feel like an old person already. My idea of an awesome song is stuck in the Eraserheads era, back when they still made good music. I play the guitar, but my repertoire has not expanded by any significant amount since my high school days. The "golden age of music" for me is the late 90's (seriously, they don't make music like they used to). I get an odd feeling when my favorite songs are playing on the "rewind" programs on the radio and on MTV.

That's just not supposed to happen when you're 21. A 21-year old is still supposed to be "in" when it comes to the latest in the music scene. I'm supposed to know who the hottest artists are. I shouldn't feel left out when someone mentions the latest song that's hitting the airwaves.

Enter Pandora Internet Radio. It's a totally awesome tool for discovering new songs! I first checked it out when Cricket did a plug for it on his blog. I became an instant fan after just one song. (Because I'm lazy) I'll let Cricket describe how Pandora works:

Here’s how it works: first, you are asked to give a song title, or an artist name. The engine will then search for your query and look for songs which are similar to that artist or song. For instance, when I search for Jason Mraz, Pandora will give me a play list with songs “that exemplifies the musical style of Jason Mraz which feature minor key tonality and acoustic rhythm guitars”. It’s smart enough to recognize patterns in the songs and search for music similar to what you inputted, and creates a play list for that particular genre. And all of this is happening right at your Internet browser, so you can just leave that window open to listen to songs.

What makes Pandora so cool? For one thing, if you're not feeling picky about a particular song you want to hear, all you need to know is the name of just one song or artist that you know you like. Pandora will do the work in finding music that suit your tastes. In other words, it's perfect for people like me looking to broaden their musical horizons. Pandora has over 400,000 songs from 20,000 artists so I'm confident that I won't have trouble finding songs similar to The Corrs' or even The Beatles'. (You can take a look at my Pandora stations here.) And the best part of Pandora is that it's free (and it works just fine on a 384 kbps broadband connection).

For being a godsend to this musically deprived blogger, Pandora Internet Radio is this week's RubeTube Pick of the Week.

As a bonus, here are some tools that will enhance your Pandora listening experience:

• OpenPandora allows you to listen to Pandora without an open browser window (although it technically still uses IE). This is what I use all the time to tune in to Pandora. Features I like: global keyboard shortcuts, and auto-updating of my last.fm playlist. It eats up a fair amount of memory though. Check out a screenshot below:
  
  
  
  
  
• Pandora's Jar is a Java-based client that works similar to OpenPandora. As an added feature, it allows you to rip the songs as MP3s as you listen to them. I think this feature as great (albeit unethical) but I don't use Pandora's Jar simply because it uses Java (sorry to Java fans). Instructions on how to rip songs here.
  
• FoxyTunes is a Firefox and IE plugin that allows you to control your music player from your browser. The latest version supports Pandora. I don't use it though because it lacks the controls that OpenPandora does, and I don't want to leave Firefox open just to listen to music, with the memory leaks and all.

Labels: Internet radio, music, Pandora, PoW, Web 2.0