Here’s an example of the kind of logic Pandora might reveal if you asked why it recommended a specific Aimee Mann track, circa Magnolia: “Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features mellow rock instrumentation, great lyrics, a subtle use of vocal harmony, groove-based composition and acoustic rhythm piano.” When I first heard about Pandora, before algorithmically driven recommendations like Netflix’s Cinematch became commonplace, I loved the idea that something as inscrutable as the ontology of taste could be demystified, broken down into its essential elements, and used to predict future sources of enjoyment.īut before long, the pollice verso–esque judgment that Pandora asked of its users brought to the fore philosophical questions that my housemate - to whom I owed my education in pre-Coltrane jazz and Brazilian pop - and I would periodically debate over dinner. Pandora’s secret sauce is predicated on the hypothesis that by decomposing a song into its musical fundamentals and collecting positive and negative feedback, its algorithm could identify particular combinations of characteristics that you might find irresistible, and subsequently recommend similar tracks to you. We seeded a myriad of stations with artists and songs we liked, and assiduously fed the algorithm with thumbs-up and thumbs-down feedback. The algorithm wasn’t built to divine how the tastes of a lapsed user might have changed in the intervening years.įor much of my post-college twenties, Pandora was the music provider of choice in the two-bedroom apartment that I shared with my housemate in San Francisco. I winced and hit thumbs-down when Thumbprint started playing "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" by Vampire Weekend, and listened wistfully when "Such Great Heights" by the Postal Service and "Swansea" by Joanna Newsom came on.Īfter half an hour of cycling through varieties of nostalgia, it dawned on me that unless I supplied Pandora’s algorithm with new data points about my current musical obsessions and enthusiasms, it may never know to make the leap to Noname, or Natalia LaFourcade, or Kendrick Lamar, or Jóhann Jóhannsson’s original soundtrack for the film Arrival. A Pandora feature called Thumbprint Radio, billed as “a uniquely personal station inspired by all of your thumbs up,” felt like a reunion with an acquaintance I had not seen in years all her recollections of me were true, but of a former self. Logging on to Pandora, I discovered, amid its virtual dust-caked shelves wrapped in a modern interface, a record of my twentysomething sensibilities and existential anxieties.Īt the very bottom of this chronologically ordered shelf were “Frou Frou Radio” and “The Way I Am Radio,” stations that I had apparently created in 2009, languishing under 36 other stations I had created and curated between 20. I was curious about the ways in which the music service I once depended on for my daily personal soundscape had changed. While navigating the rush-hour press of tired bodies on the subway - with buds in my ears, like almost every other commuter that evening - I stumbled upon a podcast segment detailing how Pandora’s new CEO plans to revive the struggling music service. The nostalgia machine in my brain went into overdrive several weeks ago when I decided to log on to Pandora Radio after a three-year hiatus.
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