Pandora

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Break-ups are really difficult.
It seems I’m being abandoned.
It was done in the very modern way… by e-mail.
I was notified just the other day.
I’ve only a few more days left and then I am to be shut out.

Alas and alack.

Like most love affairs it began in the warmth of summer.

It was a chance mention on a Radio 4 programme (I never move the dial) of the name ‘Pandora‘. They were reviewing best web sites.

I tried Pandora, an Internet radio station, and so, so loved it. I even bought speakers so that the tinny sound that my little computer squeaked out could be amplified.

Pandora sits resplendent at the top of my favourites’ list: an internet radio station that really did play music that I liked.

I began to log on every day, even before I put my socks on, thumbing up the tracks that I liked and thumbing down the ones I wasn’t so keen on.

And then I began to buy (and surely that’s what ever musician wants to hear) all the songs that I really enjoyed so that I could hear them again in my car.

My itunes collection of songs suddenly grew from a miserable 20 or so songs to 160, as I discovered even more amazing new music.

I was buying music from musicians from all over the world.

That’s 120 new songs. In just over a year.

Before Pandora I only bought one CD a year, usually by bands I’d supported before. And that was it. You should see our Air collection!


However would I ever have heard the music of:

22 Pistepirkko
A.J. Roach
Alina
Estelle Hardin
Antimatter
ASG
The Be Good Tanyas
The Bittersweets
Cara Luft
Chocolate U.S.A.
Chris and Meredith Thompson
Chris Pureka
The Church
Dirt Road 14
Eric Bachmann
Espers
The Farm
Gaelic Storm
Gene Clark
The Grapes of Wrath
Grateful Dead
Great Lakes Myth Society
The Great Society
The Green Pajamas
The Innocence Mission
Iron and Wine
Jeffrey and Jack ewis
Jess Klein
Joel Rafael Band
Kate Wolf
Kathryn Williams
Kill Cheerleaders
Linda Thompson and Richard Thompson
Lisa Mednick
Listing Ship
Loudest Whisper
The Love Affair
Mark Abis
Mira
Nelly Furtado
The Only Children
Over the Rhine
The Patron Saints
Ray’s Vast Basement
Regina Hexaphone
Seal
Six Organs of Admittance
Slumber Party
Songs of Green Pheasant
Spooky Tooth
Starless and Bible Black
Sufjan Stevens
Tanakh
Tanya Donelly
Tom Mc Rae
Trees
Whip

that now sit in my itunes list if it wasn’t for Pandora? I doubt if many of those names are familiar.

I bought music made by all in the list above, either from itunes, or if not available there, by ordering their CDs.

These artists by allowing their music to be played for free brought a richness into my life. It was like a moving musical gallery. Buying one of the tracks was like buying a print of a great work of art.

Their music had something that spoke directly to me; for example my top played track, ‘Alone’ by Mira, has been played 261 times.

I would not have bought any of the above were it not for Pandora. Some tracks I bough as soon as I heard them for example ‘The Innocence Mission’. Others I heard many times before I suddenly realised how much they appealed to me for example ‘USB’.

I’m certain I can’t be alone in purchasing music that I first heard played for free on Pandora. There must be others who have done the same.

I think it is very short-sighted of whoever is shutting Pandora in the UK down.

How many more artists could I have added to the list if streaming to the UK was allowed to continue? How many new groups would I have discovered and then whose concerts I would then have gone to see?

I often spoke about Pandora, and I know that others who had their own radio station were also buying their very favourite tracks.

Ironically, Pandora by playing music for free was in fact supporting the music industry because people like me were buying!

And we are all so different.

Different people like different music. I doubt if there is a soul alive that would have the same list of purchased favourites that I have. It was wonderfully individualised, tailored marketing.

What fools they are for forcing the closure of Pandora in the UK.

Perhaps the creators of music will also feel sad to have lost a pair of ears.

Losing my radio station is a tragedy for me.

I am heart-broken.

I can only hope; since ‘Hope’ was the last virtue left in the box; that this decision will one day be reversed.

And soon.