Posted
by Joel Mathis
June 7, 2007 at 11:10 a.m.
A quick note about Pandora and Sufjan Stevens
I took Sufjan Stevens off my [list of Pandora Internet radio stations today.][1] It had to be done.![][2]This is not because I suddenly decided that I don't like Sufjan. I'm still a fan of his Aaron Copland-meets-indie rock style, and I haven't found anybody else who sounds quite like him.Which, as far as Pandora goes, is the problem.With Pandora - as I'm sure you know - you enter the name of an artist or song and the software creates a whole station of songs and artists that sound similar to what you like. It won't play just the song or artist that you like because that would be, well, illegal for reasons I don't quite understand.And, like I said, there's nothing out there that I've found that sounds quite like Sufjan. So my Sufjan station keeps giving me a lot of singer-songwriter folk types who, very broadly, fit his style - but who are boring as hell.So Sufjan's off the list. I guess I can always pop my "Illinois" CD into the player - but that's not very modern, is it?And here is my shared stuff from my Google RSS feed. Feel free to comment on any stories you see there, too. [1]: http://pandora.com/ [2]: http://plasticaisle.typepad.com/plasticmusic/images/sufjan_head.jpg
Comments
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emawkc (anonymous) says…
Well, I guess you could always turn on 96.5 The Buzz...
Oh, wait. Nevermind.
JohnB (anonymous) says…
The one time I messed with Pandora for any length of time, I moved from "mystified" to "put out" pretty quickly. I'm sorry, but when Jack Johnson shows up on a sounds-like-Sigur Ros radio station, sumptim's amiss.
So, yeah. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
thetomdotdot (anonymous) says…
"G8 reaches climate change deal"
Better tell that to the laws of physics!!!
This might seem irrelevant to most, but you can bet your ass that despite what is said about global warming during this lead up to wwiii, aljazeera would not exist without oil money.
Joel (Joel Mathis) says…
Dotdot: Agreed.
Yes, I have an Al Jazeera RSS feed. Mostly I glance at the headlines - which usually aren't too crazy, although sometimes they have an emphasis that rings weird to Western eyes. This headline - US airport 'plotter' surrenders - uses quotation marks to suggest a skepticism in a fashion you generally wouldn't see in a U.S. headline.
Mostly, Al Jazeera's Web stories don't strike me as that outlandish most of the time - or, at least, no more outlandish than the BBC (make of that what you will). In truth, I marked that as a "share" story in a moment of not-paying-attentioness, thinking that I was, in fact, on the BBC site. My bad.
None of this, I hope, suggests I have any terrorist sympathies: I don't. But I think it's useful to know how we, the U.S., and the world are seen by others around the world. Call me crazy.
You'll notice, I hope, that stuff in the "shared items" box comes from what I hope is a diverse set of sources. I like my conversations big and messy.
thetomdotdot (anonymous) says…
Al Jazeera's thinly veiled aspirations to world domination are matched only by the hypocrisy of oil producing countries pointing the finger at us for global warming.
Dominic_Sova (anonymous) says…
Pandora's pretty, but, as I'm sure you know, not the only option out there. Give Finetune a spin - http://finetune.com/ and if you're really interested in how musicians interrelate, check out the interactive music map at http://www.music-map.com/
I have been bothering all of my friends lately for their feeds (or rather, I have been subscribing to feeds from sites my friends recommend - as most of them aren't savvy enough to rss yet) - I would love to see what everyone else in the community reads on a daily basis here.
OnShakedown (Chris Tackett) says…
dominic,
since i doubt you're looking for suggestions like NYTimes, LATimes, BBC, etc. i'll just suggest some of the lesser-known sites i enjoy.
political blogs
InformedComment
AmericaBlog
TalkingPointsMemo
CrooksandLiars
ThinkProgress.org
MediaMatters.org
RedState
alternative news sources
RawStory
AlterNet.org
Misc. sites
Inhabitat.com (a "green" design blog)
WoosterCollective.com (a blog of street art)
boingboing.net
scary_manilow (anonymous) says…
Funny-- When I punched "Sufjan Stevens" into the Pandora search engine, the common results it generated were "Toenails being ripped out" and "Fistful of live maggots being sewn into rectum." And you know what? While the pain induced in each circumstance is similiarly life-changing, I'd still roll with the "Toenails being ripped out" selection over "Sufjan Stevens" any day of the week.
Joel (Joel Mathis) says…
Ah, Scary. Pretend I wrote the name of some obscure-but-angry-but-fabulous-in-its-references-to-Roger-Corman-movies band in every place where Sufjan Stevens' name appears.
thetomdotdot (anonymous) says…
Who's Roger Corman. Is that that guy in the B52s?