Saturday, February 21, 2009

Opening Pandora's Box

We spent New Year's Eve playing board games with some friends. They asked what kind of music we wanted to listen to. I said, "I like traditional Celtic." They started up their computer and went to pandora.com and before I knew it I was listening to the Chieftains and friends to my heart's content.

This morning I decided to open my own account with Pandora. It's an internet radio station with no DJ, just a huge catalog and an artificial intelligence that thinks it knows what you like. Unfortunately, this means that listening to music on Pandora can expose you to recordings that never should have happened.

I told it I liked Rockappella, so my AI DJ played me The King's Singers' rendition of "And So It Goes." Words fail me. It just shouldn't have happened.

1 comment:

Kimbooly said...

Very clever post, all centered around a pandora's box (the pandora's box in question being the King Singers taking on a song that just shouldn't have been done).

However, I am a big fan of the King Singers, and love their version of "Penny Lane" better than anyone else's. So, I'm hoping that they haven't messed up too many songs, since I like how they do some songs.