Music

Years ago, I fell in love with XM Radio (before it merged with Sirius). I loved the variety of channels and all of the commercial free radio. I listened to music all the time in my car and in my office at work. Then a couple of years ago, I gave it up when they started adding an RIAA fee to my regularly quarterly charge and started charging extra to listen online. I just felt it wasn’t worth it and I unsubscribed both of my radios. But oh how I missed it.

In the years since, I’ve been subscribed to both Spotify and Google Music All Access. In fact, I am still subscribed to the latter. However, I have not found either to be a great way to discover new music (although Google is getting better at this). I also haven’t found either to be great choices for listening in the car, because in order to get the best experience from ether service you need to create playlists. I don’t have an issue with that, but you don’t always have a playlist that is the right length for the drive. It can be very annoying when your music runs out before you get to your destination.

Pandora Android AppI’ve known about Pandora for years, but up until about three months ago, I hadn’t used it often. We were on Sprint and in the area where we live their data coverage is horrible. Trying to stream anything was like pulling teeth. Just a horrible experience. Then about three or four months ago, Pandora offered a free one week trial of their Pandora One service. Since I was spending a portion of my day in an area where Sprint had good service, I decided to give it a bigger try. I have been in love ever since. Enter a few artists or songs that you want to be the basis of your radio stations and Pandora goes to work creating the best stations for you.

I have been amazed at how good Pandora is at picking the right songs for your radio station. I’ve only felt the need to thumb down less than a dozen songs in the months since I started the trial. I have thumbed up a whole lot more. (This is great because you can’t really thumb up or down songs when you are actually driving.) The more time you spend rating songs the better your station becomes. But it’s not necessary in order to have a good radio station.

I am paying $5.00/month plus tax to have an ad free experience. It is definitely worth the money. If I had to choose between my Google Music All Access and Pandora subscriptions, I believe I would choose Pandora. I honestly haven’t made much use of my Google Music All Access subscription since I started using Pandora regularly. Pandora has just been that good for me. I have found that I get such a great combination of songs that I love plus new music that Pandora has become the ideal music app for me. I highly recommend it.

There is one other thing that makes Pandora the ideal music app. Not only does it have a web interface, there is a mobile app for almost everybody. You can get a mobile App for Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, Windows Phone and Blackberry. If you have an older Nook Tablet, you’ll find Pandora is already installed. That covers almost anyone with with a modern mobile device.

Once again, I highly recommend giving Pandora a try if you haven’t already. I think you’ll love it.

Get the Pandora Mobile App