Done and Done

It seems like I've solved a MAJOR problem I was having in Sweden. Let me explain. One of my favorite web sites is www.pandora.com. I think this web site is pure brilliance. It allows you to create music stations based on artists you like. For example, let's say you absolutely love 'Herb Albert and The Tijuana Brass', you can simply type that into the interface on pandora and it will most likely play a song from the band, as well as create a music station around similar music. As songs and artists play you have the option to give the system a thumbs up or thumbs down. If you thumb up a song it will record that and play songs similar to that song more often. The opposite happens if you thumb down something. Accounts are free and you simply use an email address and a password you create to log into the system. The system archives your 'stations' and will play them uninterrupted (no commercials) for hours with no attention at all paid to the system. Like I said, brilliant!

Brilliant, that is until you leave the United States. Finland, Estonia, and most recently Sweden are all places pandora won't play due to licensing agreements with the artists on the platform. Buzzkill!! So for weeks now I've been trying to solve the problem of silence and trying to figure out how to get some tunes going in my humble abode. Enter www.last.fm This site essentially does the same thing pandora does and more. It's interface isn't quite as simplistic to use (in my opinion), but it is far more informative and 'social' (if you like those types of things). Essentially it works the same way as pandora. You provide some generic input (artists, songs, etc that you like) and then last fm takes over and creates an evolving and continuous play list that you can tune into as you like. Yahtzee!!