Topic: Last.fm vs Pandora (Read 6305 times)

Peter Harris · « **on:** 13 Mar 2007, 12:51 »

Okay, I've used both Last.fm and Pandora for over a month, and I still haven't decided which one I like more. I like Pandora's ability to immediately immerse you with all the love you get form your new favorite band, but I also like Last.fm's ability to accomodate your gradually shifting musical tastes.

Does anybody here have strong feelings one way or the other, and why?

jimbunny · « **Reply #1 on:** 13 Mar 2007, 15:16 »

I like Pandora much more than Last.fm, actually. Like you said: it's immediate. It's also simple, and it provides you with a lot of pretty good stuff. Last.fm, while it's a good concept, does much more than I want it to. It also gives me the feeling of being watched: keeping a record of everything I listen to, much more putting it up for everyone to see? I'm not out to impress everyone (at least everyone on the net) with what I'm listening to, nor do I want to be judged if I occasionally want to listen to something "unimpressive." So far, I haven't noticed better results with Last.fm radio, either.

Slick · « **Reply #2 on:** 13 Mar 2007, 15:50 »

I have not used pandora, but last.fm has made me an awesome friend from the internet, so I say it's the way to go.

greenMonkey · « **Reply #3 on:** 13 Mar 2007, 16:54 »

I think that while the idea of basing similar artists on tags and what other people listen to is not perfect, the idea that a certain group of people can go through and assign musical "genes" to artists is even worse. Therefore I like Last.fm.

KharBevNor · « **Reply #4 on:** 14 Mar 2007, 05:12 »

Pandora is hugely flawed. Last.fm can give you decent recommendations based off of any artist, ever. Last time I went on Pandora it suggested that Drowning Pool was similiar to Mayhem, and that Coldplay was similiar to Current 93.

Also, last.fm offers shitloads more stuff than Pandora, vis a vis community features, networking, the artist wikis, the events system and so on and so forth.

ScrambledGregs · « **Reply #5 on:** 14 Mar 2007, 09:24 »

Last.fm is for winners. It's right in the name: it's the last FM you'll ever need.

Peter Harris · « **Reply #6 on:** 14 Mar 2007, 11:27 »

I don't know about the actual radio, but I feel like Pandora has a lot more artists in its database than Last.fm. When I search for artists in Last.fm, I frequently come up empty, while I feel that Pandora knows all my songs. Also, Pandora recognizes a lot of remixes. I listen to a lot of beepboopbeepboop Euro electro pop, so that might have something to do with it.

the-artful-dodger-rodger · « **Reply #7 on:** 14 Mar 2007, 18:53 »

I use both, but I like pandora better.

it would be cool if pandora made a mp3 player, so you could listen too it anywhere, they could call it pandora's box.

greenMonkey · « **Reply #8 on:** 14 Mar 2007, 19:24 »

Quote from: KharBevNor on 14 Mar 2007, 05:12

Pandora is hugely flawed. Last.fm can give you decent recommendations based off of any artist, ever. Last time I went on Pandora it suggested that Drowning Pool was similiar to Mayhem, and that Coldplay was similiar to Current 93.

Also, last.fm offers shitloads more stuff than Pandora, vis a vis community features, networking, the artist wikis, the events system and so on and so forth.

See, this is exactly what I am talking about. Pandora is hugely subjective, and all the 'musical genes' used to determine similar artists are really quite relative. Last.fm is also subjective and relative, but less so since similar artists reflect the views of the community. Also, if all you want is internet radio, then don't use either. I barely ever listen to Last.fm radio, but I absolutely love the statistics it provides and the similar artists that it recommends.

BrittanyMarie · « **Reply #9 on:** 14 Mar 2007, 21:23 »

I love my last.fm neighbor radio! I've had to ban certain tracks that I didn't like, but mostly it plays all sorts of stuff that is way awesome.

KharBevNor · « **Reply #10 on:** 14 Mar 2007, 22:21 »

Quote

I don't know about the actual radio, but I feel like Pandora has a lot more artists in its database than Last.fm. When I search for artists in Last.fm, I frequently come up empty, while I feel that Pandora knows all my songs. Also, Pandora recognizes a lot of remixes. I listen to a lot of beepboopbeepboop Euro electro pop, so that might have something to do with it.

I don't know about such things. Last.fm has complete access to the EMI and Warner catalogues, including all their subsidiaries, plus countless others. True, there are glaring gaps, but in a lot of cases they're artists that wouldn't want their music on either service. Despite the relative obscurity of a lot of music I listen to, I find that about 4 out of 5 artists I listen to are somewhere on last.fm radio, many offering user-selectable previews or free downloads. Each artist profile has features where you can network with other fans of the artist, a full wiki entry for every artist (often better than Wikipedias), links to further information, easily browsable indexes of similiar artists, lists of the bands gigs sorted by their closeness to you, all sorts of shit. Pandora is like one aspect of last.fm, implemented poorly. Also, I have a LOT more trust in last.fms system of determining recommendations than Pandoras. For example, Pandora uses categories like 'displayed instrumental proficiency', whereas last.fm can pick up on impossible to calculate vaguaries of taste, consistently throwing up left-field suggestions that may have nothing obvious to do with what you're listening to, but nevertheless make sense compared to the entire range of music you listen to. Then there's the charts, the neighbours system, the groups, the dashboard...oh man it is so superior I don't even understand why it's an argument.

amok · « **Reply #11 on:** 14 Mar 2007, 23:01 »

Pandora annoys me because it tries to be all clever in selecting the bands then comes up with something completely irrelevant. If it's got a broad range of material, or a functional method of linking bands, it's never displayed either for me.

LastFM is where it's at.

Peter Harris · « **Reply #12 on:** 15 Mar 2007, 06:55 »

I am beginning to see a near consensus...

Fiddler · « **Reply #13 on:** 15 Mar 2007, 08:17 »

I've had more or less the same experience with Pandora as everyone else. The only band that its ever managed to show me anything similar to is Minus the Bear and even then I had to ban a bunch of songs before it worked.

ScrambledGregs · « **Reply #14 on:** 15 Mar 2007, 09:56 »

I put Can into Pandora and it kept giving me garage rock compilations from the '60s and '70s. It was OK music, but not a damn thing like Can whatsoever. This just shows that trying to break music down with science, and then recommend you music based on the elements they feel the music is made of, is a misguided idea that fails utterly. Keep chemistry where it belongs: with chemicals.

greenMonkey · « **Reply #15 on:** 15 Mar 2007, 16:41 »

As our choir director so adroitly put it: "In math, xy=xy. In music, that's not true." He then proceeded to draw a parabola on someone's folder. This is why he is a choir director, and not a mathematics teacher.

Peter Harris · « **Reply #16 on:** 25 Mar 2007, 07:49 »

On the flip side of the coin, I have personally found that Last.fm's network connection sucks. I never get told "Sorry, we're having an error" with Pandora.

Yakob · « **Reply #17 on:** 25 Mar 2007, 09:54 »

http://www.slacker.com/

Another contender in the debate, maybe? Haven't got a lot of time to try it out, but it looks snazzy. It's only in beta, though.

Ernest · « **Reply #18 on:** 25 Mar 2007, 11:59 »

Peter, are you searching using only "tags." You should try to with "artists." I mean, for god's sake, Last.FM found My Disco (the band, not the Big Black song, though that's what they're named after).

Andale · « **Reply #19 on:** 21 Oct 2007, 15:12 »

I think Last.FM is great. I like the recommendations it makes, which is how I discovered Wolfmother for the first time, I love their sound.

I like that people can see what I'm listening to because I think it helps with figuring out what your friends' musical taste is without discussion, cuz i don't know about you, but mine changes weekly almost.

also, i have never had a connection issue with last.fm, but i use the WMP plugin (which i always forget to install upon a windows wipe)

Katherine · « **Reply #20 on:** 21 Oct 2007, 17:00 »

I just signed up with Last.fm yesterday so I haven't had time to form an educated opinion yet but I do like the extras that Last.fm offers - notably the listing of all nearby events. I also like the fact that it can grab my iTunes/iPod listening history to be able to form a more accurate prediction of what I might like.

carrotosaurus · « **Reply #21 on:** 22 Oct 2007, 11:11 »

Last.fm wins.

XTC vs. Adam Ant

Liz · « **Reply #22 on:** 22 Oct 2007, 12:38 »

I rarely use Last.fm to find new music, I just like to see what I've been listening to, and what my friends have been listening to.

The couple of times I've used Pandora it spat out some pretty questionable choices, so I think I might have to agree with the rest of you and shoot it down. I did discover a couple really good artists there, though, so I guess it's not all that bad.

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Author Topic: Last.fm vs Pandora (Read 6305 times)

Peter Harris

ScrambledGregs

Peter Harris

Peter Harris

Fiddler

ScrambledGregs

Peter Harris

Andale