Pandora Radio
I chose to begin the analysis with Pandora Radio simply because I have gotten the impression that it is the most popular among casual music listeners. I can understand the appeal of Pandora for two reasons: it has the most aesthetically pleasing using interface and it create good stations for a certain mood. However, beyond that, Pandora actually has very little to offer.
When you first create your free account on Pandora, which is a very easy process, you are prompted to type the name of a band into a provided field. Then, Pandora creates a station around that band. More than likely, the first song that is played on that station will be a song by the artist that you originally entered. From there, you can provide "thumbs up, thumbs down" feedback for your songs, and based on that feedback, Pandora will continue to play music similar to the songs that you like and shy away from songs similar to those you dislike. The most important word that I used in that last sentence is "similar." The reason I say that is because Pandora's "Music Genome Project" takes in your feedback and analyzes the musical elements of the tracks you like, for example if they are in a major or minor key, if they are upbeat or mellow, and what kind of instrumentation is utilized. The ultimate result is that you won't hear more songs from the artists you like, but more songs that are similar to the songs of artists you like. I know this sounds a bit convoluted, so I'll provide an example.
Let's say that I just joined Pandora. The first artist that I enter into the field is "The Band." The first song that appeared on my playlist was, "The Weight" from "Before the Flood," the live album with Bob Dylan. I gave the song a thumbs up, because this is probably my favorite song of all time, even if it's not necessarily my favorite version (my favorite version is the one from The Last Waltz, with the Staples Singers). Anyway, the song concluded. Now, based on my feedback so far, you'd think the next logical choice would be a Bob Dylan song, maybe a softer Zeppelin track, or maybe some Allman Brothers, right? False. Literally, the next song it played was an all steel-drum version "Redemption Song" by Bob Marley. Now, if it would have been the original Bob Marley version, ten MAYBE it could have been applicable. I mean, Bob Marley was a folk singer, but his music falls under more of a reggae umbrella. This is the point that I'm trying to make. Pandora analyzed the musical elements of the song rather than analyzing the artist and genre. Sometimes, it fails to take era into account and it will play a more modern-era track that has similar musical elements.
Now, I know that you can "Add Variety" to your stations by adding more artists, because I've done it extensively. It doesn't help, trust me. I have put hours of both artist feedback as well as "thumbs up, thumbs down" feedback into Pandora and it doesn't change the fact that Pandora's "Music Genome Project" creates mood stations rather than stations full of artists that you like. It's also worth noting that the variety seems to be lacking. I can't tell you how many songs I've heard from Death Cab for Cutie on my "indie" station. It doesn't matter how many times I thumbs down some of their songs, they just keep popping up, based solely on thumbs up feedback that I give for other artists that are not Death Cab for Cutie.
To end the section on Pandora, I would just like to mention that I am still listening to "The Band" station that 'i created as an example for this post, and "Come Sail Away" by Styx came on. Case closed.
Slacker Radio
Slacker Radio is the new kid on the block in terms of Internet radio, but as it turns out, this free service has worked that to it's advantage. Slacker has taken all the best features from Pandora, added what seems like a vastly superior library, included a diverse collection of well-designed preset genre stations, and increased the user's ability to fine tune stations to their liking.
Let me begin with the preset radio stations. Not only does Slacker Radio let you make your own station and design them more accurately than Pandora does, but it also comes packed with tons of radio stations categorized by genre and sub-genres that are designed by music experts. It's basically free satellite radio! When I created my free account, the first thing I did was go to the preset stations and click on the "Alternative" genre. Now being a long-time fan of independent music, my expectations were that there would be maybe two or three stations within the "Alternative" genre category, but I was wrong. Not only was there an "Indie" and an "Indie Hits" station, but also "Party Alternative," "Alternative Hits," "Singer-Songwriter," and about 12 other alternative stations. I've been switching off between these stations, and while they are all filed under the umbrella of "Alternative," each station maintains it's independence and seems to greatly differ from those that surround it.
One of the many features that makes Slacker unique is the fact that you can actually edit and fine tune these stations to your liking. So, instead of starting from scratch building a station, you can actually start with a quality foundation and make adjustments from there. It definitely saves you time and some of the frustration of coming across songs that you completely dislike.
My favorite feature of Slacker is how you can actually make a station that plays ONLY the artists that you program it to play. If I made a station around "The Band" like I did on Pandora Radio, I could actually enable a feature within the station that ensures that the station plays songs ONLY by "The Band." And trust me, the station isn't just playing "The Weight," "Up On Cripple Creek," and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" over and over again because Slacker is equipped with an incredibly extensive library.
Finally, Slacker offers an abundance of features that give the user more control to fine-tune their custom stations, which in turn makes those stations make more accurate musical suggestions. Slacker refers to
these features as "FineTune" features. These features allow the user to edit the amount of "Artist Discovery" that your station offers you, the level of popularity achieved by the songs that are played, the frequency that your favorite songs are played, and the musical era of the songs that are played on your station. This amount of control give the user seemingly infinite possibilities to both hear a lot of their favorite songs while discovering new ones that they will actually enjoy.During the course of writing this section of the post, "The High Road" by Broken Bells was played on the preset "Indie" station. That album hasn't even come out yet. You can't argue with results.
Last.fm
As of a couple of months ago, I didn't even know that Last.fm offered a free online radio service. I mean, I guess it makes sense based on their name, but I primarily used Last.fm as a tool to track the artists and songs that I listened to in my iTunes library. Based on my statistics, Last.fm would offer some suggestions for artists that I would like, but more often than not, those artists were already somewhere in my iTunes library. The novelty of tracking my music listening stats wore off when I would frequently leave my iTunes running when I went to class or went out to party, and a bunch of stuff would be played that I didn't even technically listen to. I recently examined their free Internet radio service and realized that it has given me no significant reason to start using Last.fm again.
What makes Last.fm unique from the other free Internet radio services is it's social networking features, tracking statistics, and music community.
When you join Last.fm, you install an application on your computer that tracks the songs that you play in your iTunes library. It keeps track of how many times you play a certain artist as well as certain songs and gives you weekly breakdowns while keeping track of overall statistics. It's kind of a unique tool, and you'll wish you had it sooner so you could see your musical breakdown over the the past few years, but as I previously stated, the novelty might wear off rather quickly if you're not attentive to turning off your iTunes whenever you're not listening.
Using the feedback received from your iTunes, Last.fm will not only give you recommendations of music you should check out, but also a list of users who listen to similar music as you. This is where Last.fm becomes kind of "Myspacey." I don't really care about people that I don't know who listen to the same music as me. I'm not going on Last.fm to make friends. I do think it is nice that I can add people that I'm actually friends with and follow what they're listening to, but past that, the community features seem kind of senseless. Adding to the Myspace feel of Last.fm is the fact that unsigned bands can add their music to the site and collect royalties.
All of this content aside, the Last.fm radio service is decent. I like how you can listen to a station comprised purely of music recommended to you based on what you have listened to previously and the feedback you have provided. Most of the time the reccomendations are pretty accurate in terms of artists, but I don't feel like it really takes any big chances, instead recommending really safe bets. I guess that's kind of the Catch-22 of Internet radio. On one hand, you want to be brave and discover new music, but sometimes when one of these services actually take a chance on a recommendation, it turns out to be something really off-the-wall and really turns you off of the service.
I also like how you can "tag" tracks that you hear on Last.fm. It's kind of a wiki-style of genre-naming as well as song and artist categorization. It's kind of an intriguing concept, but because it's basically open source, it's only become less and less reliable.
The Bottom Line
All three of these services now have Apps in the App store for the iPhone and iPod Touch, so you can take your Internet radio with you on the go, provided you maintain Internet connectivity. I've used all three of them while walking around D.C for the past couple days and found that I only lost service while riding on the Metro. So, whatever platform you choose, just know that you can take it with you wherever you go,
Clearly, while each of these services has their strengths, if you're looking for the best, most customizable Internet radio, Slacker is the way to go. Not only does it provide what is essentially a free customizable satellite radio service, but you can also build stations from scratch that will provide the most accurate music recommendations. The additional feature that allows you to create stations that play only the music of the artists specified by the user is really the icing on the cake.
Pandora's "Music Genome Project, while interesting as a concept, merely provides you with decent stations based on a particular mood that you might be in. You're not going to get a plethora of recommendations or hear a bunch of music that you haven't heard before.
Last.fm provides a more customizable platform than Pandora; however, the user interface is not as simplified, and the onslaught of unnecessary community features doesn't really help it's cause. Last.fm is a great service if you'd like to track your own musical statistics or follow the musical statistics of your friends (if they actually keep up with it) but beyond that I found the Internet radio service to be mediocre at best.
So, there you have it. The conclusion of an epic showdown. I sincerely hope that my research and opinions have provided you with enough information to make an informed choice in free Internet radio providers based on your particular tastes. Good day.
