Pandora SUCKS!

I’m not sure computer-compiled radio is the future, but the fact that bozos listen to Pandora illustrates to me that you can sell crap to the public, because people are too dumb to know any better.

Try fine-tuning your Pandora station.  I know someone who’s invested 200 hours in creating ONE Pandora station!  Removing all the crap so the results are ear-pleasing.  As for developing another?

That’s how it works on Pandora…  You insert an artist, and then say yay or nay, and hope that you don’t bump up against the skip limit. As for building another station…  You mean you want me to start ALL OVER??

No fucking way.

I laugh when people e-mail me about Pandora.  I tried and rejected it.  Was flummoxed when a Jackson Browne station I created delivered a Journey song.  Huh?  If Browne fans weren’t so mellow, they’d kill Journey fans, at least pooh-pooh them.  Jackson is music for the mind, Journey is music for the MINDLESS!

But Slacker?  That’s a whole ‘nother thing.  BECAUSE YOU CAN FINE TUNE YOUR STATIONS!

Let me make this clear.  Slacker streams tracks to you too.  But rather than going on a bizarre adventure, creating a lame station that frustrates you, you can PICK A STATION ON SLACKER!  They’ve got sixteen rock outlets.  And nine country stations.  There are almost twenty categories.  With supposedly fringe genres featuring a plethora of choices.  There are eleven electronic/dance channels! Thirteen alternative!  All programmed by experts!

In other words, Slacker is free satellite radio.  Yes, FREE!  Go to: http://www.slacker.com/ and try it out!

But know that you can only fast-forward a limited number of times per hour, unless you pay for premium service…  And then you can click through AD INFINITUM!

This is similar to Pandora.  But only the legal construct is the same, the limited number of skips.  The two services are truly as different as kindergarten and college.

It’s not only the preordained channels on Slacker.  You can create your own, just like with Pandora.  Only you get to FINE TUNE YOUR STATION!

First, with the Popularity category…  Do you want "Auto", "Fringe", "Deeper", "Familiar" or "Hits".

You can tell your station what year you want the music to be from…  "Auto", "Classic", "Older", Recent" or "Current".

And then, there’s the favorites tab…  Which you can set on "Auto", "Minimum", "More" and "Maximum".

In other words, if your station is only playing music you already know, and you want to go deeper, you’ve got that option!  You can discover or go on autopilot listening to the familiar.

And you can fine tune the PREEXISTING STATIONS!

So, after going to Slacker.com, click on "Stations"  on the left-hand side.  After choosing a genre and a specific station, you’ll ultimately hear music.  The key is to click that link with the little heart on it, that says "Customize", to the right of the album cover, to fine tune…

So why is Pandora ruling and Slacker almost completely unknown?

Tim Westergren.  The guy who runs Pandora.  He says he’s on your side, he wants you to e-mail your Congressman, keep your beloved Pandora alive!  I don’t know what the fuck for.  Like I said, the service is unusable.  Tim Westergren isn’t about music, he’s about MONEY!  And he’s done a great job of promoting his site.  Pandora’s projected to be profitable next year!  Take that major labels!

But Slacker had a million downloads of its app on the BlackBerry.  Which is kind of like saying you had a million downloads on the Palm Treo.  BlackBerries are great e-mail devices, lousy web-surfers.  But the iPhone/iPod Touch is great at surfing!  Turns out you can download a Slacker Radio app for the Apple platform!

Still, buzz is limited.

Because Slacker employed the wrong strategy.  Kind of like satellite radio.  Satellite radio’s formula was to give you no choice.  It was supposed to be the only alternative in the car.  And to a great degree, it is.  But now, with 3G, people are streaming via their plugged-in iPhones.  So, Sirius/XM has to be about programming.  But too many of their stations are turn-offs, with playlists too tight and deejays too jive.  But they can’t see this, since the programming department is run by the same people who ruined terrestrial radio!  In order to succeed, Sirius/XM needs to focus on the programming.  That’s where it’s at today, WHO’S GOT THE BEST SERVICE!

Slacker made an equal mistake.  They created their own device!  That’s like creating your own computer operating system.  Now it’s about apps on the iPhone!  Thank god, Slacker adjusted (and now Sirius/XM has too, they’ve got an iPhone app ready to go!)  But they just haven’t gotten the word out.

But I’m doing it for them.  To combat the incredibly lame service known as Pandora.  Like I said, I don’t know if computer-suggested playlists are the future.  I think not.  That’s where I believe Sirius/XM has an advantage, all the human overhead they’ve got.  But if you LIKE Pandora, PLEASE check out Slacker.  Using Pandora is like computing on a PC when the Mac exists.  WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO DO THAT?

Bob,

Thanks for the tip about Slacker. So far, it’s blowing the doors off of Pandora. I love the option of being able to choose deeper cuts. And I like the sneak peek at the next cut.

Every time I’d turn on my Pandora’s ELO station (so sue me, I am an unrepentant fan) it’d start off with "Mr. Blue Sky". Great tune, but come on. There’s a lot more to choose from. In fact, every Pandora station seemed like a tepidly, politely programmed radio station — the very thing I was hoping to avoid. Surprise me, man! Anyway, Slacker is still new to my iPhone, but so far, it’s impressive.

Thanks, Bob…
Dag Juhlin