Pandora- Anyone Want to Share?
Dec 27th, 2008 by Kirsten
Posting from: Philipsburg, MT
Listening to: Todd Snider, Talking Seattle Grunge Rock Blues
I am taking an XM Radio break for a little while. It is partly because of the Christmas music overkill. It is also partly so I can have a sort of mental reset on my favorite channel, The Loft.
It has been changing radically over the last few weeks. I have liked some of the changes. I have disliked some of the changes. But when I heard some absolute trash playing on Lou Reed’s show on The Loft this week, something kind of died for me. It was as though The Loft- through Lou Reed’s show- had stooped to just about the lowest of the low in the music world. It was worse than Britney Spears, worse even than the Detroit Grand Pubahs song about making sandwiches on the dance floor.
I have come to realize that instead of looking forward to turning on The Loft and relaxing into the flow of the music, I am tense all the time listening to it as I await something to come on either minorly annoying or ridiculously atrocious. It does not make me happy most of the time. I get little joy from this as I constantly await whatever good programming I am hearing to be ruined by the next selection. It’s a relief when it doesn’t suck, but it feels like suckiness is always lurking somewhere around the corner.
The Loft isn’t what it once was. It’s also not better than it once was. But there are still some really great aspects to it. The questions now in my mind are (1) is it worth paying for anymore, and (2) is it likely to improve in the future? I don’t know, but the only way I can think of to try to give The New Loft a fair shake after all this upheaval is to take a break from it and try to listen again without all the baggage that has built up in the last few weeks.
Meanwhile, I have been looking more seriously into alternatives and for at-home listening, I am truly finding Pandora to be an incredible experience! It is absolutely blowing me away! I have heard that it is like that at first but later gets old and repetitive, but the person who said that admitted he didn’t have a lot of variety on his station. I have a large number of artist seeds on my channel- many of my favorites from The Loft- so hopefully that will help keep it fresh. But I also thought it would be fun to share channels with other folks I know to try and mix things up a bit. If you would like to share channels, please post a comment.
My station Artist Seeds at the moment are:
Artist
Alison Krauss
Amy Rigby
Bodeans
Brett Dennen
Brian Vander Ark
Buddy Holly
Dar Williams
Death Cab For Cutie
Eastmountainsouth
Emmylou Harris
Gin Blossoms
Greg Laswell
Jack Johnson
Jackie Greene
Jill Sobule
Joe Jackson
Johnny Cash
Kathleen Edwards
Low Millions
Lucinda Williams
Luka Bloom
Matt Nathanson
My Morning Jacket
Newton Faulkner
Nickel Creek
Over The Rhine
Patty Griffin
Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers
Rosanne Cash
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals
Steve Poltz
The Everly Brothers
The Guggenheim Grotto
The Mountain Goats
Todd Snider
Tom Petty
Warren Zevon
It’s been a while since I sampled Pandora but it occurs to me that it would be fun to see the results of seeding with Weird Al Yankovitch.
My Pandora stations are the following:
X marks the spot
Swing It
SKA-ness Radio
System of the Down Radio
Let’s Relax and Jam Radio
Rock and Blues Radio
Flight of the Conchords Radio
To Defy the Laws of Tradition Radio
Otis Redding Radio
My profile is snolets, which should give you links to follow to the stations I created.
Well it is not Pandora, but you should check out KGSR out of Austin Texas.. They play most of those artists regularly..
You might also check out Gordon Lightfoot, Bob Schneider, and Lyle Lovett on Pandora..
Thanks, Lightbearer. I checked it out and really liked it. I think I’ve gotten spoiled by no commercials, though.
Lewlew, thanks. I have signed onto your swing station. I am kctynan on Pandora if you want to check my stations out. I have added a bunch more Artist Seeds to the first station I made, and I have also added a second station that is seeded only with Matt Nathanson songs.
I will check your stations out. Thank you for pointing me in the correct direction.
Hi Kirsten,
I saved your Kirsten Eclectic over at my station list. I started a new station that’s predominately instrumental for unwinding. It’s called Unwind Radio.