Contemporary Christian Music comes to Pandora

by on February 13, 2008

In our ongoing effort to continue expanding the Music Genome Project, CCM is now live on Pandora! Over the past year we’ve received a lot of requests for this, and we’re very pleased to finally bring this collection to its many fans. Although we’ve had a small number of CCM artists for a while, what we’ve done in addition to massively expanding the selection, is added a playlist feature that creates CCM-only playlists when launched from a CCM song, or an artist whose work is overwhelmingly CCM. That is the unambiguous desire of our listeners.
So pick your favorite artist/song and give it a spin – we have all sorts of CCM; rock, gospel, hip-hop, acoustic, country, bluegrass, pop, you name it… And, as always, don’t be shy about letting us know what you think.
Enjoy!
Tim (Founder)

Comments

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  1. Iszi
    December 30, 2008 at 4:53pm
    Wow! I never even knew the "Holiday" feature existed, and now I find out about this almost half a year after it's come out! I've got to start paying better attention! Definitely something I'm going to explore! What's more, this post is the #1 hit on Google for "christian music genome". How do I know? Because that's how I found myself here, searching for - unfortunately - the one feature that Pandora doesn't seem to have included in this update. That is, to create a "CCM" only stations based on non-Christian music. There's a few non-Christian bands that I like for whom I have not yet found a Christian analogue and I'd really like a way to discover that kind of music quickly and smoothly. With the current setup as it's described in this thread, it would seem that this is doable, but more painful than it could be. I would have to start a station by seeding a Christian artist (who may not really sound like the one I'm looking for) in a along with the non-Christian group I'm trying to match up. Then I'd have to go through the process of weeding out all the Christian artists that don't sound like the non-Christian seed, and the non-Christian artists that sound like the Christian seed which doesn't match the sound I want. Maybe - for Pandora's more general purposes - this would be taking the whole "CCM feature" a little too far, but I think it would be something very nice to see. Besides that, I've only got one minor gripe about this feature. That is the usage of the term (I'm hoping only in labeling, and not in function) "CCM". There are a lot of Christian artists out there (Demon Hunter, Disciple, Living Sacrifice, and Soul Embraced are a few) who definitely don't fit the dictionary - or at least Wikipedia - definition of "Contemporary Christian Music" and I hope they aren't excluded from the "CCM" side of this feature because of that. Thanks for all the work you guys put into this. Keep it up!
  2. Alee – Listener Advocate
    December 31, 2008 at 10:57am
    @Iszi--wow, that sounds really complicated! I think I'm starting to wrap my head around what you're saying. If you enter an artist like Demon Hunter, you won't get exclusively Christian music but you want to enter in an artist like Black Dahlia Murder and potentially get Demon Hunter, right? This will take some patience, my friend. Your method sounds like it would work though, so good luck! -A
  3. veenemml
    March 22, 2009 at 5:13pm
    I really hate entering a Christian band like Relient K and having the station be saturated by Christian artists whose music sounds nothing like the band (or song) I have based the station around. This feature drives me up the wall. There should be a feature to turn it OFF for good.
  4. Katie
    May 25, 2009 at 7:30pm
    This was a very good choice--I was not expecting Pandora to do this, so it was a pleasant surprise. It doesn't make sense to lump Christian music with secular as most of the other CCM listeners I know don't like having both secular and Christian music in the same playlist. Smart move!
  5. Sterling
    June 11, 2009 at 5:49pm
    I believe that Pandora has moved in a good direction with adding CCM tags to songs. Knowing that all music can influence your emotions in a positive or negative way ( based on your view of neutral ) so that you can screen those desired effects. If you don't believe that music can effect your mood/emotions/thoughts then google "effects of classical music"
  6. Jackie
    December 01, 2009 at 8:05pm
    Thanks! This was the most amazing idea ever. My friends and I (in high school) love listening to the Christian bands on Pandora and now I see why the play lists work out so well. I actually checked to see if Pandora was a Christian buisness.
  7. Dan
    July 10, 2010 at 12:03am
    1 how can i tell if a song or artist is classiied as "CCM" by your service? 2 If a station is classified as CCM will it still match songs played musically with the 'defining' songs and thumbs up and down?
  8. Dan
    August 06, 2010 at 8:31am
    the lack of response is disheartening.
  9. Ryan, Pandora Support
    August 06, 2010 at 9:22am
    @Dan -- There's no way for a Pandora user to definitively identify whether an artist is tagged as "CCM" or not. However, artists that play exclusively CCM music will be identified as such by Pandora. On to your second question, CCM seeded stations should stick to CCM music. If you come across an example of a CCM seeded station that is playing non-CCM music please let us know at pandora-support@pandora.com. Thanks and hope you enjoy the music!

Comments are closed.