Songza

For all my love of the shuffle setting on itunes and radio in its various forms, I don’t particularly like streaming music services.  I guess they just seem kind of superfluous to me.

Pandora is the only one I’ve had very much experience with up to this point, and I’ve always found it to be too much work. Back when it was still new (read: totally free), I tried it out.  I wanted to hear Jackson Browne at that particular moment, so I entered his name.  Except that’s not how Pandora works.  You enter an artist, and they give you something similar.  Of course, similar can mean a lot of different things to these guys.  Similar in style.  Similar in theme.  Similar in rhythm.  That last one is especially specious, since you can get a song with the same rhythm as, say, “The Pretender” that has absolutely nothing else in common with that song.  It’s kind of disappointing if all you wanted was a Jackson Browne song.

So when I read about Songza a few weeks ago, I was a bit skeptical.  But the Slate article said Songza was different, because the music was chosen by people, not computers.  “Curated” is the term Songza uses.  You go to the site, and choose a playlist based on your mood or the time of day or what you’re doing.  It seemed intriguing enough, but I didn’t do anything with that information until now.

I’ve been listening to “Today’s Indie Folk and Americana” for the last little while, and it’s not half bad.  I haven’t heard anything I really love, yet—but I haven’t heard anything I hated enough to skip, either.  The point is that they’re creating playlists so you don’t have to.  I’ve been enjoying 100.3, but it’s just Classic Rock.  Songza might be a good place to hear some new music.  I’ve found that relying on Rolling Stone reviews and podcasts is less than efficient, so I need a new system.  This just might work.