When was the last time you purchased a music CD? Any time in the past year? For me, it has probably been 5+ years. Why? Because there are so many other resources for listening to music.
Deep down inside I know this is probably killing the music industry, or at least catering to pop music, making Taylor Swift ever so much more money, but I can’t help it. Music streaming is so much easier and more convenient.
One of my favorite services is Pandora. If, by some random chance, you haven’t heard of Pandora, it’s a music streaming service that allows you to type in a favorite artist, song or genre, and it will create a radio station around that. Then you can thumbs up/thumbs down songs and Pandora will customize the station based around your musical preferences.
Pandora has opened the doors to many new artists and genres and I’ve actually purchased many songs from iTunes that I first heard on Pandora.
But one frustrating thing about Pandora is it’s not an on-demand service. Plus, the thumbs-up feature is more for Pandora’s benefit than for yours, letting them know you’d like to hear more of that song and/or artist. But what if you just want to see and/or listen to all your thumbed-up songs?
Don’t worry, there are some sites for that.
The first is Songs Liked on Pandora. This site is super simple: it analyzes all your thumbed-up songs and shows them to you in a list based on either artist or date thumbed-up.
To do this, go to Pandora and click on the My Profile button.
In the address bar of your web browser, copy your ID/username.
Paste that username into the field on Songs Liked on Pandora.
Wait about a minute and all your songs will appear. This is super helpful when trying to find new music to buy or if you want to build out a favorites playlist on another service like Spotify (also an awesome music service).
The downside to Songs Liked on Pandora is it doesn’t allow you to instantly play those songs. For that, you can use another handy site: http://www.gregatr.com/feedplay.aspx
This site is similar to Songs Liked on Pandora, in that you need to enter your Pandora ID/username.
From there, it will analyze all your Pandora playlists and suggest custom YouTube playlists built from your thumbed-up songs.
You can decide which playlist you want and the site will snag all the relevant YouTube videos it can find and combine them into a handy YouTube playlist.
You may be thinking that YouTube is just a video site, but it’s also a pretty powerful music player. It takes a minute or two to build out the playlist, depending on how many songs you’ve thumbed-up, but once it’s created you can listen to all your favorites and even save it for future reference/listening.
I should give a warning that the playlists generated by this site are public and viewable on this user’s YouTube channel. I don’t find this to be a big deal, but if you’re super concerned about privacy you may want to give it some thought. This site/playlist doesn’t give anyone access to your Pandora account and if your Pandora profile is set to public anyway, this gives less information than Pandora does. But I thought I’d put the disclaimer out there.
So, does this do away with Pandora? Absolutely not! Pandora is still the engine that finds great new songs for you, plus it provides needed variety. These services are helpful when you’re just craving an absolute hits list.
Give it a try!
This sounds like a great site for any music lover. You can actually pick what you want to hear–not what the radio stations want you to hear.
I love Pandora! I haven't listened in a long time. I switched to Spotify a little while ago, but I haven't listened to that much recently due to streaming issues. Its definitely the wave of the future.
Everyone I know loves Pandora. I need to get on the stick and sign up for that because I love listening to music.
I still do buy music, whether it be physical CDs or digital downloads. But it is wonderful to have access to a wider variety of music with Pandora. I can't wait to try the thumbs up option.
I still buy music- especially via Amazon's Autorip (get the digital album with the purchase of the CD) because I like to be in control of my music and what plays. I am a diehard music junkie! I do use Pandora at work from time to time! It's great to listen to genres that I enjoy but am not interested in collecting.
This is awesome! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Pandora and YouTube are big around our house, but we do still buy some music too (just not nearly like we used to). I myself haven't used Pandora very much, though, so your post is really helpful!
I love Pandora! Thanks for sharing these great tips!!
xo Emily
http://www.hungryadventurer.com
Genius!! I love Pandora and have often wanted to a way to make a station out of my fav songs! This is that solution!! Thank you 🙂
I love discovering new music on Pandora! Altho I will admit I listened to a CD during my 5 hour drive today because my iTrip was broken and I couldn't play music off my phone.
No way! This is awesome! I use pandora all the time for my running mix, but I never hear my songs that I thumbs up. Now I know why. I'm going to check this feature out. Thank you!
Totally awesome! I love that it will do that because sometimes I don't want to hear a bunch of new songs to get to the ones I'm in the mood for.
Very neat! We have a Pandora loving family! I can't wait to do this! Bring on the Faves playlist!
What a great feature! We love Pandora in our home!
We don't have Pandora, but I think my husband will love this!
This is such a great tip, a lot of my family loves Pandora so I'll have to pass it along!
I never knew this. We listen to Pandora all the time. My 4 yr old hates when it can't play the song she wants, so this is definitely something we're going to try.
I don't know what I would do without my Pandora!
Pandora is great! Love music!!