Indulge yourself in new music with Pandora Radio

Pandora is a free Internet radio website that plays songs similar to your favorite song or artist non-stop, has recently become popular for many reasons.  By listening to commercial-free music, the user can learn about new bands and their songs.  However, if you thought  Pandora can only be used via a web browser, you are wrong.  The Pandora Radio application for the iPhone/iPod Touch lets you do take advantage of all Pandora’s features, but on a portable device.

If you are unfamiliar with how Pandora works, it’s very simple.  Simply write what your favorite song is or who your favorite artist/band is.  From there, a “station” is created and Pandora automatically select songs that are similar to your favorite song or band.  This is based on musical genre, rhythm of a song, and other musical components.  The goal is to listen to songs from other bands that compare to your favorite one.  What’s great is that these other bands have record labels, so they’re legitimate bands.

With respect to the Pandora Radio iPhone/iPod Touch app, it’s exactly the same format as if you were browsing on Pandora’s website.  With an Internet connection, you can access your current Pandora account or create a new one straight from your iPhone or iPod Touch.  Once you’ve logged in, you can access stations you already created or make new ones.  Everything else at this point is straight-forward; simply play the station and begin listening to different varieties of music.

The Pandora Radio application has several features that highly intrigued me.  Just like their website, you can give a “thumbs-up” or a “thumbs-down” while listening to a song.  “Thumbs-up” will let Pandora know that you like the music’s harmony, use of instruments, and any other musical elements.  However, “thumbs down” will let Pandora know that you didn’t like the song and its style.  Choosing the thumbs-down option will make Pandora advance to the next song.  However, there is a limit to skipping songs; because of music licenses, the user is limited to approximately 5 skips per hour.  Although some people might not like this aspect of Pandora, I think it’s great.  If the whole point of Pandora is to listen to new music that is relevant to your favorite song or band, why skip a song?

The Pandora app is nearly identical to the music player in your iPhone or iPod Touch, given that the majority of the screen displays the album cover that a song comes from, the bottom portion of the screen displays the play/pause button, next track button, and a volume bar.  The thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons are also found on the bottom part of the screen.  On the top right-hand corner, there’s an icon that displays bullet points.  Tapping on that button will provide you with the artist’s biography.  However, the best feature on the Pandora Radio app that blew me away is the Pandora cover flow option.  While listening to a station, simply turn your iPhone or iPod Touch horizontally and you can navigate through past songs you heard and the current one with cover flow.

Overall, I think that this application serves its purpose.  Pandora, in general, is a great Internet program.  From its commercial-free music to its simple interface, this free application will hook a person to Pandora very quickly.  Pandora allows you to listen to different bands and you can listen to it while at work or at home.  The Pandora Radio application is available for free at the iTunes App Store.  This is truly an underrated application; nevertheless, the Pandora Radio app is a key example of how we will listen to music in the future, and it’s certainly worth giving it a shot now.