Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. HOMEPAGE

This new feature made me love Pandora again

I've been a paying Spotify subscriber for nearly three years, and, as a result, I've mostly stopped using Pandora.

Advertisement

In fact, it had been so long since I had used Pandora on my phone that I had to download the app when I recently started testing Thumbprint Radio, a new feature the internet radio company announced on Monday. 

But since then, I've been listening to a lot of Pandora. And it's been great. 

thumbprint radio
You'll find Thumbprint Radio in there with your other Pandora stations. Pandora

Thumbprint Radio is different than other stations on Pandora because it’s not based on a single band, artist, genre, or composer. Rather, it’s based on everything you've ever liked — or, as Pandora says, "thumbed up" — when you've used the internet radio service.

(According to Pandora, I've thumbed up 311 songs since I started using the service more than ten years ago.)

Advertisement

To decide what music to play for you, the company takes the attributes of songs that you've liked — a team of musicologists at Pandora catalogs songs based on hundreds of different characteristics — and applies them to songs of different genres.

"What we can do is take that song in hip-hop and match [its attributes] to a cluster of songs that work in a different genre," Chris Phillips, Pandora's chief product officer, told Tech Insider in a recent interview as an example of how the new feature works.

When I first started using Thumbprint Radio, the station played a lot of classical music. That's because over the past few years my primary use of Pandora has been to listen to classical music at work.

But I didn't want to listen to a classical music station, so I thumbed down some of those tracks and listened to a few tracks — and thumbed them up — on some of my other stations. Pandora says that a person needs at least three different stations with at least four thumbs up each in order for Thumbprint Radio to work. Pandora recommends creating a new station and thumbing up some songs if you're like me and haven't used the service in awhile.

Advertisement

Since then, the station has played for me a great mix of music from some of my favorite artists and bands, like Ryan Adams, Arcade Fire, Fleet Foxes, Pink Floyd, TV on the Radio, Matt & Kim, and even Simon and Garfunkel.

pandora thumbprint radio
Screenshot

One thing that I have noticed is that I’ve only heard a handful of songs that I’ve never heard before — that is, most of the music I’ve heard on Thumbprint Radio has been music that I am familiar with.

This has been fine — I still like the music — but it does set it apart from Discover Weekly, Spotify’s playlist that each week gives every subscriber a mix of music it thinks they’ll like.

Pandora even says the new station "is not just your thumbs up on shuffle. While you rediscover all of your favorites (songs you thumbed up 10 minutes to 10 years ago) we will continue to add in new songs that we think you will love."  

Advertisement

This is just my initial impression of the station, and I expect the mix of music will change over time. Pandora says that the more you use Thumbprint Radio, and the more you listen to and interact with other stations on the service, the better the station will become.

The new station has certainly given me a renewed interest in Pandora, and, as a result, I haven't used Spotify much over the last week. But I see the services as complementary to one another — after all, Spotify allows you to choose any song at any time, while Pandora gives you playlists — so this isn't a zero sum game.

I don't think I'll quit Spotify and start paying for Pandora. But I do know that if I'm ever at a loss for what to listen to at a particular moment, Thumbprint Radio won't disappoint me.

Advertisement
Close icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.

Jump to

  1. Main content
  2. Search
  3. Account