Opening Pandora's Box

Is that a witty title of a new porno? I wish. So do you, admit it. Well it should be, because that sounds awesome, and I for one would watch it. It's not though. It is an interactive online radio station that you make by choosing a band, a song, or a genre.

Pandora

Why should you do it?

1. It allows you not only to listen by Genre, but allows you to have multiple genres. So if you're a complete fucking douchebag like me who likes The Shin's, Danzig, and Kelly Clarkson, you can have different radio stations for each genre.
2. It allows you to decline or approve certain songs once you have a selected a genre, song, or artist. So if you like Heavy Metal but they play a song that you don't like in the Heavy Metal genre (I'm a big fan of Metallica's song "One", but hate the song "I Disappear") you can click the thumbs up button for "One", but the thumbs down button for "I Disappear" when the song is played.
3. It allows you to pick an artist or song that you like, then makes a radio station that plays songs from bands that are of the ilk of the artist or song that you chose. For example, I picked Bad Religion and it played songs by NOFX, The Offspring, Green Day, Rancid, The Misfits, and many many others. Why is this important? Because you may not know the genre of the artist. I have always thought that Bad Religion is Punk, and Green Day is Punk-Pop, and I guess never really put The Misfits into a bucket or genre. (unless you count Fantastic as a bucket!) The point is that Pandora only views the word genre as a label, and just plays music that fits your needs instead. It actually takes pigeon-holing an artist, song, or genre out of the equation, and lets the user decide by letting it sneak up and surprise you rather than jamming it down your throat.
4. It could possibly expand your listening pleasure. I haven't heard every artist out there, and I don't fucking want too. (I'm okay with being allowed to not like Country music without being subject to listening to that fucking shit) Pandora allows you to listen to a song and make a quick decision if you like it or not, while your doing other shit. I going to admit something to everyone out there, and open myself up for criticism. I don't know much about The Dropkick Murphys. The only thing I really know is the song from the movie "The Departed" called "I'm Shipping up to Boston", and yes it fucking rocks. It makes me want to drink a metric fuckton of beer and get rowdy. But because of Pandora, that's not all I know. Now I have heard a bunch of other Dropkick Murphy songs, and I have more information to make an informed decision if I might or might not like the D-kicked Murph's.
5. It could possibly expand your knowledge of an artist that you are minimully interested in. I don't own a Coldplay CD and I may or may not ever own a Coldplay CD. I know that this is an abomination to middle white class Apple loving Starbuck drinking America. BUT, Pandora allows me when I am listening to "Speed of Sound", to also find other Coldplay songs like "Viva La Vida" and "The Scientist" that I may or may not be interested in. Which is wierd because I'm pretty sure that I'm gay for researching Coldplay but its pretty cool that Pandora allows me to do it. So maybe Pandora is a gay enabler. Time will only tell. If I have a boyfriend and start watching a different kind of porno in a year, I guess we'll know.