Curated stations: a few more staff favorites

by on June 20, 2007

Here’s a few more fun staff-curated stations for you to sample…. tell us what you think, and tell us about your own well-formed stations too!
Vic, one of our trusty engineers and a guitarist for Soul Captives and Anouman, has these favorites to share:
Jamaica ’69: Ska, Rocksteady, Early Reggae from the late 60s and early 70s
Funky Organ!: New Orleans style funk with heavy, heavy Hammond B3 organs a la The Meters
Music for Goin’ Steady: Go steady with your girl (or boy) with this
Vic is also featured in one of our lovely Pandora podcasts, one of my favorites, actually….Reggae, Ska, Rocksteady and Dub
Here’s a handful more from Veronica, in our advertising department, who’s a music reviewer on the side (where does she find the time?):
rock and roll, b**ch
not another “the” band
get your garage on!
country soaked sap
Casey, another of our brainiac engineers, offers up his Acid Blues station, which is centered around blues-infused hard rock, mostly late 60s and early 70s. He says it plays great mainstream songs as well as lesser-known gems.
Jasmyn of our listener advocate team (and a drummer in 3 different bands, including the Skygreen Leopards) has


these fun stations to contribute: 60’s – 70’s Californian Sunsets and the “trippy” Psychedelic Realms.
The station Alyssa, our Pandora renaissance woman, is most proud of is Alyssa’s Ella Fitzgerald Radio, which despite its name, is based on all her favorite jazz singers. She says she rarely has to give a thumbs down, and she sings along to the station all day long.
Scream And Run Away Radio is meant to be a spooky station, and while it has taken a lot of work on Alyssa’s part, I can assure you that it is indeed rather creepy.
Adam, one of our system administrators (they keep the site pumping!), contributes these three stations to the mix: Dub & Roots Reggae, based on music from the 60s through the 80s, Adam’s Bluegrass, “heavy on the banjo”, and Funk, Soul, & Go-Go Music.
If you missed the first two posts about stations curated by staff (how could you?) and you want to try more, they’re here and here.
Cheers, Lucia

Comments

  1. Bryan
    June 20, 2007 at 7:01pm
    I have a suggestion or two (unrelated to the thread). One, I think a suggestion link/blog section would be a good idea, so I may throw some thoughts at you in a relevant manner (If you have one and I didn't see it, I apologize.) And two, the more important idea, is a suggestion about crafting your radio stations. You suggest songs based on the music genome project which relates songs by aspects/categorizing you have pre-assigned to them. This works great, but I'd like to widen the possibilities with this. Allow us to create a station using the categories you use to label songs, with the option of suggesting new categories to the list. This thought evolved as follows: I have two radio stations in particular. One is titled Virtuoso, meant for flashy guitar work (instrumental), and another is Nobuo Uematsu, the main composer for the huge video game series Final Fantasy. I was hoping to shape these stations based on these groups, one for awesome shredding, and one for game music. In the Virtuoso/shred station, Minibosses came up, a video game cover band. This is awesome because I didn't know you had them in your library. But if I could see and access the list that relates the music, via a list to check mark, I could possibly have selected for Minibosses to be found in Nobuo's station initially. I utilized the option to move him to that station anyways. But I only found him through the Shred/Virtuoso station, so I was lucky. I think if we had access to the different labels for the music, we could create great stations this way, which may then pull songs that largely fit the station's 'flavor.' I hope that makes sense. If not, but you're interested in what I was trying to say, please email me and I will gladly elaborate in clearer fashion. Thanks, ~Bryan
    Reply
  2. Lucia @ Pandora
    June 21, 2007 at 11:35am
    Hi Bryan - Thanks for the well-thought-out suggestion. We're currently working on a feature for listeners who want to give more "advanced" feedback on their stations, which will involve being able to choose musical attributes that you like or dislike with a bit more precision...I think you'll like it! Always feel free to send comments/suggestions to pandora-support@pandora.com. We read everything. Cheerio!
    Reply
  3. Mike
    June 23, 2007 at 5:05pm
    I love the service but I have a gripe. Really turned off with the censorship on the song titles. The asterisks are confusing.. and a major annoyance. Any way to shut off the censorship?
    Reply
  4. Random Music Fan
    June 24, 2007 at 10:23pm
    Hey, was looking for a suggestion section, or a forum in general, and couldn't find anything. So I hope you don't mind me throwing my general comments here. I really like the idea of getting more specific control over our preferences. Like the ability to say why we like or don't like a song. It would give us more pinpoint control for getting irritating quirks that the algorithm thinks we like, out. Just generally, I love your work, and the guts it takes to start categorizing music like you've done. If there was a dream feature, it would be a who am I button. Either the ability to select all, or by station, and have the algorithm summarize our musical preferences, and try to tell us what genre/era/style we most reflect, according to that selection. Just a more advanced version of why did you play this song. Thanks, and good luck.
    Reply
  5. Joe Wilson
    July 14, 2007 at 11:35pm
    I always enjoy "hearing" staff stations, sometimes they make a good starting part for some of my own stations..and others I find perfect just the way they are..
    Reply

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