You might have heard of this site already or not. It’s called //Pandora, created by the Music Genome Project.  What the heck?  To sum up what the //Music Genome Project does, it is a group of people who break down the DNA of a song or musician.  They determine try to “capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony."  Pandora offers a way to listen to the fruits of their labor.

When you visit Pandora, you will be asked to enter in an artist or a song.  When the information is inputted, a song that exemplifies the artist’s music style will play. After the initial song, similar suggestions from other artists will play.  You can choose to listen to the next song, skip to a following song, and even buy a song you have just listen to.  Suggestions are not based on the old “if you like this artist, you might like this next artist because  similar people listened to it as well”, but is based on the DNA profile of the artist’s catalog.

You can create a profile and save favorite songs, all it takes is an email address.  The service is free, but you can pay as little as $3/month for no advertising.  So try it out and see if you like it.  This is a streaming music service, so you might need to wade through some songs you may not like.  But if you are looking for new music, or just want to have a radio station playing in the background, you may want to give //Pandora a try.

[For more information on Pandora, please see the Podcast //Inside the Net 6: Tim Westerngren of Pandora Media All you need to do is download the Podcast and listen to it on your computer.]

[Also note: I was able to find most artists I searched for on Pandora.  Not all will appear though, as they do have a limited catalog that is growing each day.  So do not be discouraged if you are looking for someone that isn’t currently there.]