Pandora: Create Your Own Radio Station

I'm sure there are many sites like this one, so I'm not claiming this is the best. But I just discovered Pandora.com this evening and it is quite slick in my opinion. You type in a musical artist, and it does some searching, and then plays music by that artist or by other artists that are similar.

I didn't have success with the first two I tried: Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull. What I like about these bands is I think hard to abstract away from their particular songs, so I'm not surprised that a database and some algorithms couldn't do it very well. In both cases, the songs they suggested I might like -- other than the ones by PF and JT themselves -- are not songs I like.

But it did work well when I tried Enya. Now her music is very unique: her voice is stunning and they layer it many times for an incredible effect. But aside from that, her music is a combination of celtic and "new age" instrumentals. And I don't just like the unique aspects of it, I also like these fairly common characteristics as well: gentle, rich "new age/celtic" pieces that are nice as background music while I'm read email, doing some programming, or whatever. And I'm very much interested in finding more music of this type, so I'm glad to have found the Pandora service.