The internet knows I like David Bowie

I love Pandora. I really do. It's like making an instant mix tape... except we don't really make mix tapes anymore, we make "playlists" but that just doesn't have the same ring. Anyway, let me just reaffirm that I enjoy and appreciate the whole Pandora thing, and we give them our money to have the fancy desktop whatsit.

That being said, when listening to my playlists, somethings I begin to wonder if Pandora is really paying attention. For instance, these things go together: OKGo, Franz Ferdinand, Death Cab, The Gorilliaz—this is acceptable. But don’t put crazy 90’s dance music in my mellow station. I don’t care that this song features a “dynamic female vocalist” or “minor key tonality.” Is it mellow? No! So don’t play it on the mellow station. Play it on the Usta-Usta station, or the Perky station, or anything else where BPM is a significant measurement. I can understand getting confused and playing The Smiths or even The Cure on my Grly Girl station, and I'll let that slide and just kindly notify Pandora that those songs belong on my Whiny Boys station. But MC Hammer in the midst of Coldplay & Travis? Honestly, that's not ok. My Bustamove station can handle the Hammer pants, so just scoot on over there and leave my soft-spoken UK boys alone, thankyouverymuch.

Besides, those little descriptions of why they're playing the song are really just an excuse to mock the magic behind Pandora. I am grateful it exists, but next time you read those things, do it in Strongbad's voice. And "many other similarities identified in the Music Genome Project" is really just a fancy way of sayind "a bunch of other stuff we couldn't be bothered to put here" and that is totally something Strongbad would say.

Plus, there needs to be something more than just Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down.