Opening Pandora's Box

First Napster fell, then Limewire got hobbled by the MPAA and it's even difficult to find active streams on BitTorrent. So what am I supposed to do to get a steady rotation of new music on my computer? Well, earlier today I came across a great site that I had never seen before called Pandora-a free internet radio service that lets you design your own radio station. Ok, so it isn't quite as user friendly as downloading whatever MP3 you want and importing it to iTunes, but since I spent most of my time on my computer at home, it's really nice. The really cool thing about pandora is it's genealogical approach to music--if you enter in your favorite aritist's /song's name Pandora searches its database and picks out similar musicians who you may never have heard of. It's a great way to expand your knowledge of music you like.

For the last couple years Woody Guthrie, the godfather of American folk music since the early 1900's--has been in steady rotation on my computer. The only problem is that once my CDs were stolen in Madison, I have only had a few dozen of his songs. But by logging onto Pandora and entering his name I suddenly have a steady stream music by him and his contemporaries.

So if you are feeling a similar music miasma--then check out Pandora.

(This blog post was not sponsored in any way by an internet music service)