Pandora, or Why They Don't Make Transistor Radios Anymore

When I was a kid, way back in the 60's, I had a transistor radio.  This was an amazing little gadget that would play music without being plugged into an electrical outlet.  In addition, it was also small enough (about the size of a wallet) that you could put it in your pocket - imagine, being able to listen to music while you were out walking around!  Heck, if you had an earphone (just one in those days - this wasn't some fancy stereo radio), you could even listen with other people around.

Radios got smaller in the 70's, and in the 80's we got portable cassette players - bulky, but you could now decide what you wanted to listen to.  Soon, the Disc man was around, giving you more options.  In the 21st century, we've seen the digital explosion, and mp3 players are cheap and stuffed with features that would have been impossible just a few years earlier.  It's hard to imagine how it could get better than that, right?

Actually, we've already moved on.  As nice as it is to listen to your music on a tiny device that holds more music than you could listen to in a month, there are some drawbacks;  The biggest problem is you have to buy music, and you're limited to what you've purchased.  If you're out and about, you can't decide, for example, to switch from classic rock to holiday music, unless you've had the foresight to load a bunch of different tunes.

OK, so if you want all that control, what's the answer?  If you have a smart phone and a data plan - and who doesn't, these days? - you can listen to just about anything you want, for free, on Pandora!  Think of Pandora as a programmable Internet radio station - you can supply the name of an artist or song, and it will try to pick out similar music for you.  As it plays, you can tell it which songs you like, and which you don't.  By rating the songs, the system eventually learns your preferences.  You can set up multiple "stations", and even "shuffle" between them, to get a better mix.  I even have several comedy stations (Political Comedy, Comedy Icons, George Carlin Radio) set up, in case I just want to laugh.

I've been using Pandora for 7 or 8 years - first at my desktop computer, and later with my smart phone.  It works well, and it's free.  You can also use it everywhere you've got data service, which is almost everywhere these days. I often listen to comedy routines when I'm driving, or I'll run it in the background when I'm working in my office.

As I said, Pandora is free, but it's not perfect.  The free version has ads (although I don't seem to get the ads on my Android phone), and you're limited in the number of times you're allowed to "skip" songs, both per hour and per day.  You'll also need to interact with your computer occasionally, so the system knows you're still there.  Fortunately, most of these limitations are minimized or eliminated by upgrading to Pandora One for $36 per year.  The upgrade eliminates the ads, improves the sound quality, and removes the limit on how much you can listen.  If you use it a lot, it's definitely worth it. If all you want is to occasionally listen on your computer or phone, the free service is fine.

I can still remember my first transistor radio.  By today's standards, it was big, heavy, and a poor performer.  The batteries didn't last long, and the sound quality was horrible. As bad as it really was, I loved the idea of being able to take it with me.  I still do - only now I take just about every song ever recorded with me, with no static and near perfect sound.  Amazing!