Thoughts, Raves & Outright Beatings

Currently Diggin’ House Of Cards by Radiohead from In Rainbows

Yes, I joined another social network last night.

Pandora.

Here’s my profile:

The scuttle butt around the ‘net is that Pandora blows Last.Fm out of the water. While I disagree, I can see the purposes both serve.

After playing around with my profile there last night, I can safely say that it’s easier to discover new music on Pandora. Create “stations” based on genre, seeded artists, et. al. Pandora will find established artists for you, and then go seeking ones who’s sound may fall along the lines.

Some things about it, however, kinda bug me.

What if I just want a station by a particular artist? What if I skip by 4 songs that I don’t like (due to their “licensing” agreements, you can’t skip by more than 4 songs in an hour within a station. Huh?)? Also…I have to go to their site to listen to the music. There’s no Winamp/Itunes/whatever plugin where I can make these decisions without having to open my browser.

Also, not every song or artist is available on that site (try doing a search for “The People” by Common there; Robert Plant and Alison Krauss TOGETHER aren’t on there either). Makes it kinda irritating to put together a display of fave artists or songs when you cannot select them. You also have no control over what goes onto your play list initially, unless you listen through a bunch of songs you don’t like until you pick specific ones to use. Unless you can create one out of your “bookmarked” songs. Which doesn’t seem to be available at this time.

Last.Fm doesn’t have everyone either, but you at least have the option of listing your fave tune or artist on your site and others can comment on them. I also have my audioscrobbler plugin on Winamp, so as I can provide my playlist in realtime (oh crap! Now everyone will see how many times I’ve REALLY played that Calvin Harris album - no wait…). I also can create playlists of songs that I previously played - or I can let Last.Fm choose for me.

I just installed the newest version of Winamp, tho’ and the recently updated tracks isn’t catching as it used to. I KNOW I listened to “Nude” way more times than I indicated. I’m thinking it’s the 2 second crossfade I set up in my winamp that’s treating all songs played as one. But it sounds so damn perfect! I’m not giving it up so as the rest of the known world can see what I’ve listened to in the past five minutes.

I’m throwing the bone to last.fm for now because I’m a control freak about what I want to listen to and how I want to listen to it. But, I gotta say, the interface on Pandora is much nicer. Smoother, cleaner…dare I say it, flash-ier.

Then again, I haven’t played much on either of the interfaces. More results in a bit (or when I stop having a life…which ever comes first).

Oh, if you wish to compare too, here’s my last.fm profile: