An Internet Jukebox

Pandora is one type of User Controlled Content. Beyond that, there is also the really refined sites. One of this is Project Playlist.

This site, which is facing legal action from the RIAA, allows users to create and save playlists. Then you can post these on your website, myspace page of blog of choice. You can change the settings such as color, whether its random or not, or whether its starts immediately on page load or not.

How these playlists work is they aggregate links to songs posted and hosted on web sites. The songs themselves are not stored by Project Playlist. So, there are times when you try to find something that may be a little on the obscure side and have no luck. Well, no one has it hosted anywhere. Surprisingly, I can find Command Performance recordings somewhere. Weird!

Playing with Pandora's Box

I recently decided to dump Windows. What I mean by dump is I took the OS and threw all of it out the window. So like a jilted lover, all of my ex's shit went onto the street for him to collect.... Wus...

Because I left Microsoft and I went running to the warm and complicated arms of *nux (Ubuntu is my distro of choice), I've had to give up my shoutcast temporarily. This is not a huge thing. I have a snazzy program on my smartphone called Mundu Radio that allows me to stream .mp3 radio stations such as Shoutcast onto my phone. Should I need to hear the Sleep Bot anytime soon, I can use my phone (Not having Groove Salad for a while is a bummer). But, Fear not, I will find a way to access ICY streams again.

Until that time, I've been experimenting with the other part of internet radio: User Controlled Content Radio. I actually would beg to differ that it is NOT a radio in the truest sense. I cannot control the output of my local terrestrials or the Shoutcasts I'm fond of. Those are radio stations in the true if not a semblance of. Pandora is up there with Slacker, last.fm, Accu Radio and Project Playlist. And there are/will be likely more of these User Controlled content stations on the net before I get done typing this sentence. User Controlled Content is not complete. I have used these before and even Pandora itself. But I always go back to no control over the stream.


When you go to Pandora, you type in an artist you'd like to hear (You could, if you are so inclined, choose from a predetermined list of genres but they are limited). Pandora, due to liscensing and whatnot, will not just play the artist you type in. Say I type in Gershwin (George, not Ira), which I did. What pops up may not be Gershwin. It may have the same tempo, similar arrangements, style and textures as Gershwin. In fact, I got Prokofiev. If I don't like Prokofiev (say I'm not fond of 20th Century Russian composers (which would be an insult to music but I digress)). I can give it a thumb's down. If it doesn't belong, I can give it a thumb's down. If I'm ok with it (ya know, it doesn't exactly turn my crank but I can see the appeal) then i can tell it to play it once a month. Like any of Rossini's Operas. I don't think they jive with Gerswin.

Since I put in for a classical composer, Pandora just goes after any classical work composed after say, Martin Luther broke from the church. I need to refine my fledgling station with more composers from Gershwin's day that are similar in style to get a Modernist Radio Station. But you get the jist. Things take refining. I can add Copland and Rachmaninoff to further get my station to play what I want. Then I can rename it something like "Modern Classical Radio" which seems counter intuitive but... meh....

There are catches as expected. You can't rewind or fast forward, though you can pause a track if need be. You only get 6 skips per hour per station though there are simple ways around this like refreshing your browser. These limitations are due to the liscensing and fees that Pandora must undoubtedly pay. Pandora is by far not complete. It is quite often that artists I look for stump Pandora. It just isn't in her box.

Eventually, I'm going to rank all of these User Controlled Content radio stations and give the lowdown what features distinguish them. BTW, it looks like there are some job openings at Pandora. If you live in the San Francisco Bay area and know IT shite, go here.

I have yet to hear Gershwin's infamous "Rhapsody in Blue" and may never hear it on this station.

Come get me mother! I'm through!

New Blog!

I love internet radio. I might love it more than the average soul on the nets. I spend more time listening to radio there then probably anything else including regular terrestial radio. Maybe more than watching television. In fact, I can tell you that I do it more than television.

So after listening to countless Shoutcast stations and using all sorts of programs to listen to stations, i've decided to create a blog about my experience using internet radio. I do not doubt that I am far from the first to tackle this topic. But I will still give my two cents about it because this is the internet. And what are we net denizens if not opinonated bastards unfraid to disperse our opinions to the netverse.