I love Pandora, except for one thing. Right now I’m listening to my Depeche Mode station and would love to hear some contemporary music in the Depeche Mode vein. Instead, Pandora plays songs all from the Depeche Mode era (ie - early 90’s). I’d be very interested in new artists that I haven’t heard before. How do I get it to expand it’s time reference?
Do you know of anything, even a single song, that’s more contemporary but in the desired style that you could seed the station with?
Really, I don’t. (That’s likely because I’m very tired.) I thought that was kind of the whole idea of Pandora, to expose you to similar artists? (Snark not directed at you, BTW.)
Try “Map of the Problematique” by Muse. Very, very DM-ish. For even more fun, check some live recordings on YouTube, where they tack on outro solos…
My Pandora station is based off Assemblage 23. I get a lot of Depeche Mode-esque (and actual Depeche Mode) music with them. Some bands you might like in a similar vein:
- Beborn Beton
- Covenant
- VNV Nation
- Seabound
- And One
- Wolfsheim
- Neuroticfish
- De/Vision
And thanks. I appreciate the recs and will use them. But my frustration is with how Pandora works. I don’t hear new artists with the same flavor as Annie Lennox. Or Bare Naked Ladies. Or Elvis Costello. I hear Back to the 80’s/Back to the 90’s. Yet, the description Pandora gives you as it’s creating your station is “Now finding lyrical music heavy on irony” or whatever. But it doesn’t find music of the same style, it finds music of the same era (of not even similar styles most times). Which is fine if that’s what I’m in the mood for. But in that case, I’d rather create a genre station instead of an artist station, know what I mean? At least give me some examples and I will tell you whether I like them or not.
What if you put in different DM albums from different eras, instead of just DM as a group?
Hmmmm. That’s an interesting idea. I will try it when my free month starts over again.
And I don’t mind sending and email to the FAQ team at Pandora. I was just hoping there was something I was missing.
I agree with you, by the way, that Pandora’s apparent algorithm isn’t really all that amazing. I’ve just started using it basically as a replacement for XM radio since I have a smartphone now (I can drop the ever-more-expensive Sat Rad since I can stream over the 3G plan I’m paying for). I create a station using “Built to Spill” for the main band seed. I get a lot of Built to Spill. Ok. Then some Pavement. Ok. A little Radiohead. Sure. Then more Built to Spill and more Pavement. Nothing I hadn’t heard before, though. So seeking variety in the same vein, I put in “Neil Young and Crazy Horse” (the “and Crazy Horse” to specify the rock/“grunge forefather”-type work with Crazy Horse) and what do I get? Bob Dylan, Crosby Stills & Nash, Neil Young folky stuff, a LOT of acoustic folk stuff – all of it was awesome, but not really what I wanted on that station. I’m starting to think the problem isn’t in finding things that I like, but in effectively separating them out in separate stations. But yeah, I’m disappointed too that I have yet to hear something and think “hey, I’ve never heard them before, need to look them up.” It’s mostly stuff I already know – which is fine (especially for free, commercial-free radio), but the discovery aspect is a little lacking.
My station that has just “The Mars Volta” as a band seed doesn’t do so well with the variety, either. It’s basically all TMV and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez stuff. Which is fine, but I already have all of it. Need MORE!!
I can’t offer you any solutions, but I’ll at least support your gripe. I, too, have noticed that Pandora seems to supply “contemporary” songs rather than “musically similar” songs to the song/artist seed.
However, I’ve also noticed that if you let a station run for around five hours or more (I pay for unlimited; I think it’s a good deal), it starts to morph into stranger and stranger stuff that I’ve never heard of. Not that it’s necessarily similar, but at least it’s new to me!
I don’t separate my stuff out by station - I have the Gila Station, which gets all of my likes/dislikes. I find that that gives it enough information to give me things I don’t know but will like, and (more interestingly to me) to not give me things that I don’t like, but other algorithms always think I will. Based on my purchasing preferences, for example, online music stores over the years have always pushed me towards Radiohead, which I’ve never enjoyed; Pandora has never once given me a Radiohead song other than Creep, the only song of theirs I’ve ever liked. You need to give it more than just one seed - try several dozen, and see how that works out.
Did any member of Depeche Mode do any solo work? I’d try giving Pandora a nudge by listing those artists as influences.
I had a similar problem with The Housemartins station, but when I added a few more artists I like the variety really opened up.