Obligatory Box Reference

So you’re up on Pandora, right? She’s the streaming radio music swapping buzz darling of the moment. I have to say, Pandora may deserve the hype. I’ve done the “make your own station” thing before. Watching in horror as Gwen Stefani gets rolled into my Bjork fixation, I usually give up on these services (all the quicker if they eventually expect me to pay). But Pandora is different. Pleasingly so.
Pandora breaks down individual songs not by genre, artist, or popular opinion but by using over 400 aspects of music. I’ve had a song chosen because of mild rhythmic syncopation, a subtle use of vocal harmony, major key tonality, and mixed electronic and acoustic instrumentation. Another mentioned my penchant for throaty female vocalists and excessive vamping. All this to say that mentioning two favorite artists and one good song is enough to make a station that will give you uninterrupted goodness. Those other services often require days of tweaking to get a decent playlist.
So why add to the hundred so reviews of this service? Because I have a simple hack that turns Pandora’s gift of ten free hours into a lifetime of aural pleasure. Now, don’t get me wrong, if you sit around your computer 24/7 then three bucks a month for really good tunes is worth it. But I was in an experimental mood last night. The first thought, how does Pandora keep track of my station preferences without any personal information entered by my own hand? I first assumed IP address (a symptom of P2P users fear). So I made Pandora believe I was from Slovenia. Yet a quick trip to Pandora brought up my stations. Hmmm…cookie anyone? IP faked, cookies wiped, stations still there. Well, Pandora does use a Flash interface. I wonder if wiping out all the saved Flash info would, bingo! Stations disappear and my ten hours are reset.
Of course this means that my station tweaking is all for naught. That’s why I write down a short list of good station groundwork for quick restructuring. So to end this, here are two of my favorite starters so far.

Hanging Tree Swing: Elliott Smith/ Tom Waits/ Two Gallants and Deadweight On Velveteen by Jose Gonzalez

A Peppy Dementia: Parry the Wind High, Low by Frank Black/ Details of Attraction by Consonant/ The View by Modest Mouse/ My Friends by Red Hot Chili Peppers