3 May 2010
Last.fm > Pandora
I don’t usually write about music because I don’t believe I have particularly avant-garde taste, but Last.fm is so much better than Pandora I feel compelled.
I used Pandora for the past few years, mostly at work. I don’t stream music all that often, but about two months I got tired of my library and had an itch for something new that I didn’t know how to scratch. Pandora kept playing the same songs over again. Snooze.
Last.fm I tried because it’s on my XBox 360 (how’s that for acquisition on other platforms?), and let it fly during a party. It was good, and I had already set up a free account.
Now I use Last.fm all the time. The music selection is more diverse and more nuanced, I think. For example, while listening to an Owl City-themed radio station, I heard a really familiar voice that I couldn’t place. Happily, Last.fm gives lots of artist information right on the radio page: Dan Black, it turns out, was previously the singer of The Servant, a defunct British band that I always liked and forgotten about in the depths of iTunes. I’ll probably buy his debut album this week.
Pandora certainly has a more streamlined UI than Last.fm, but I prefer more information to less; I particularly like Last.fm’s list of the last few tracks I’ve listened to, artist info and performance dates.
One thing I can’t understand, though, is why Last.fm doesn’t have a pause button like Pandora: if I want to stop, I have to restart the station when I come back.
Ultimately, of course, it’s about the music — and Last.fm does it better.
