(By Mike Brinkerhoff - from Keeping Up With The Brinkerhoffs)Dear Pandora,
You've certainly done well for yourself. In a very short time, you've become the darling of the web-radio world, and your name has become synonymous with streaming music over the Internet. You're the "Kleenex" and the "ipod" of your field.
Congratulations.
Oh yeah, also, I hate you.
Hear the gasps from your legions of brainwashed minions? They think I just committed blasphemy. How could I hate Pandora?? After all, it was created to put the power of the "Music Genome Project" into the hands of the everyman.
Well, don't get me started about your precious music genome project... Because it's crap. Oh sure, in theory it's a cool idea. But music, especially to those who truly love and know it, contains complexities that approach those of the Human Genome. And that took many many years, and many many supercomputers to unravel. And even now that it's been mapped out, nobody's quite sure what to do with it. So take your kindergarten project-level music genome project, and get back to work.
I first met you, Pandora, more than three years ago. There was a buzz building about this great new website where you tell it an artist or song that you like, and then it entertains you for hours with music that is similar to what you started with.
I was so intrigued!
Until I actually logged on. I was in a mood for some good old fashioned Power Pop. I wanted upbeat, energetic music with guitars and drums cranked up to eleven, and I hoped you could introduce me to some new purveyors of powerful pop.
I started my quest with The All-American Rejects. I wanted to hear songs in the vein of "Dirty Little Secret" or "Swing, Swing". The first couple selections were promising, but then you started slipping in the same pathetic crap I had to listen to on the radio at work every day. When Eve 6's "Inside Out" came on, I hit that "Thumbs Down" button less than a second into the song.
You responded by apologizing, and saying you wouldn't play it again.
Cool! Except that the next song was by Nickelback. Seriously. Come on, Pandora, if I wanted to hear that bland, tired, overplayed crap I'd go turn on
Star 101.5. You're supposed to save me from that nonsense!!
After a few attempts at salvaging my station, I gave up and tried to forget about you. But then a few weeks ago, my car flooded and the only casualty was the sound system. While I await to see if Santa can help me out, I drive in silence... Except that I hate driving in silence! So I reluctantly clicked on the Pandora icon on my phone. The half-inch speaker of the Palm Pre does a surprisingly good job of filling the silence, which was a pleasant surprise.
But it's not surprising, that I'm finding that the silence has many advantages.
It's Christmas Time. I love Christmas Music. I've tried many of your preset Christmas stations, and I've made some of my own. As a direct result, I'm not really feeling the love for Christmas Music anymore. Out of a 5 song sequence, it's VERY likely you'll hear the same song twice. It may be a different artist, but it will be "Winter Wonderland" again and again and again.
My favorite (and of course, by "favorite," I mean "un-favorite") example was hearing the same song, by the same artist repeated with only one song between, because it was featured on two different compilation albums. Wow, that music genome project is sure powerful!
The bottom line, Pandora, is that you suck.
And if you sucked a little less, I might just hate you a little less.
Love, Mike.
