Internet killed the radio star?!?
You know, like “video killed the radio star,” the popular 80′s pop song by The Buggles.
Nowadays, who really listens to the radio anymore. This song is about how radio suffered a loss of appreciation with the creation of TV. It used to be, in the “golden days” that stars were created on the radio. Then television came to be and more and more stars were created.
Well, how about nowadays, where people become famous simply by being on the internet. Anywho, I will leave that’s a whole other story for an entirely different blog post. My concern here is how the internet has created so many avenues to listen to music, so who really needs the radio anyway? Yet another technology has been created to steal radio’s thunder.
I find myself listening to Pandora more than anything, including the radio, C.D.s, and my iPod. I love how Pandora lets me create new stations that only only have music I like on them. I also LOVE that Pandora introduces me to new artists that are similar to the artist it knows I already like. Most of the time, I end up liking what I hear, and I download that artist’s entire album off iTunes. Seldom, do I not like an artist that Pandora plays.
The Beauty of Pandora
My only pet peeve with Pandora is that I cannot skip more than 6 songs in one visit. Now, these usually are not songs that I dislike per say. I would just rather not listen to them at that very second. Pandora is like one big, endless iTunes playlist…I’m just limited to the number of songs I can skip. But, for all that Pandora gives me, I can live with this one minor flaw.
Online streaming has become extremely popular today. I mean, why wouldn’t it? There are virtually no commercials. The user has control of the music they listen to, and doesn’t have to bother channel surfing to avoid radio talk shows and exacerbating songs. MySpace, and purevolume are other outlets of free music streaming online. After I hear of a band via Pandora, I usually head over to MySpace to listen to other songs and decide whether I want to invest in an album purchase. That’s about all I use MySpace for now, but that’s also another story for another time and place.
Not only can I enjoy the sweet sounds of Pandora from my computer, but I can listen to it on my Blackberry during my walks to class — FOR FREE. I can’t take the radio anywhere with me (or at least I do not know if any radio stations are connected to cell phones, yet). Granted you can still stream radio online, but who would want to listen to the commercials and suffer through god-awful songs, that yes, every radio station does play!
Pandora has changed the way I experience music, and I feel that I am not alone. Let me know what you think about Pandora. Are there other online stations similar? I’ve got a fever for good music, and the only prescription is, well, more music! (cheesy SNL reference, I know, but since the skit involved music, I’m going to post it anyway: ENJOY)
