I like Pandora. I’m not sure if I love it, but I definitely like Pandora. It’s an easy solution to a problem that plagues us almost daily: what do i want to listen to? Some of us (I for one) have long commutes; some of us walk the dog for an hour; some of us need some noise to drown out the other office lemmings. I’m batting two for three here!
For those of you Pandora virgins, it goes like this. You download the app or go the website. Create an account (takes all of ten seconds). Then put in a band or type of music that you like – and voila! – you’ve created a music station. Create many, create a few, create whatever you want. But if you use Pandora already, you’ve already littered your account with fifty stations. Here’s a few you may not have.
5 Pandora Stations You’ve Never Heard Of
Plastic Operator
They’re definitely electronic. No doubt about that. But not in-your-face 1000 bpm electronic. Listening to Plastic Operator conveys the imagery of just being at a good point in your life. You may not be a millionaire, but you’re just really happy with your life.
It’s a little introspective at times. The lyrics are symbolic without being heavy, and that’s hard to pull off. Matthieu Gendreau and Pieter Van Dessel create music that you can like without feeling guilty about. This isn’t musical fast food – this is refined taste. I imagine if these two were reading this description they might feel my description is a little off base, but I listen to this station multiple times a week and I never feel like I need to be in a “mood” to listen to it.
The Trash Can Sinatras
This may be the guiltiest of guilty pleasures. Like eating cake for breakfast. And not metaphorically either – actually sitting down for breakfast and eating a big piece of moist, frosting-laden cake.
You’ll find yourself liking this way more than you should. And while you may never bring up this band in any kind of social setting, you’ll notice you start humming the strings to this song. When this song, Usually, came on another Pandora station, I immediately screen shotted it. After creating a new station, I didn’t take it off for about three days.
Another thing – this station competes with Ratatat and Flogging Molly for lazy afternoons. Now, this band is nothing like either of those two, but I just…can’t…stop…choosing this station. Sure, Pandora will play Morrissey or the Smiths about every third song, but it’s a small price to pay.
Nobuo Uematsu
Quite possibly the reason why gaming is where it is today is because of this gentleman. Uematsu composed the music for the great Final Fantasy games: FF7 and FF10. He did scores more *bah-dum-tish!* in other FF games as well, but none more celebrated than these two.
In fact, his music gained such popularity that they included an entire freaking symphony and put him on tour stateside. Tickets were about $50, and had I not had a wedding for a certain close friend, I would have been in attendance silently taking in years of emotion in just one night.
If you have ever played even a minute of Final Fantasy, this station is a must listen to. It’ll transport you out of the mundanity into the fantastical.
Joseph Marie Canteloube
This is the part of the article where you think I’m kidding you. But I’m not. This isn’t a list of the stations you already know. This is a list of the stations you aren’t listening to. Expand your musical palate for those times when you just want pure music to take you away.
I was first introduced to this artist back in my college teenage angst years. Hopefully your teenage angst years were better than mine, but when I first listened to the above song, I just kind of stopped. Like, I physically stopped and simply listened. It’s been in my rotation for years.
Yes, it’s almost operatic. And at the same time it’s soothing. Like when you were a small child and really sick, and your mother just stayed by your bed until you fell back asleep. It’s that pure.
Justin Towne Earle
Part folk, part country, part bluegrass, part two fingers whiskey, Justin Towne Earle is music for a summer day. So many artists these days put out catchy beats or bouncing melodies, but I haven’t found anybody recently with the amount of soul that Earle exhibits.
After listening to the station for awhile, you’ll see how his music has progressed, but at every point along the way he carries this soul to his music. Like he and only he can sing these songs – like God created him to strum his way and shape his vowels.
If there was anyone that could have existed in multiple eras of American time – Earle could. I can easily see him playing in O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Django Unchained. Once you put this station on, you’ll go back to it consistently.
Give these stations a chance – and if you don’t like them – let us know in the comments!
I just started using spotify, but i may give pandora a whirl one of these days.
pandora is well worth it – and these stations are actually new to me.