This Will Ultimately Cost Me A Lot Of Money

Ok, so Pandora Radio is a website where you type in the name of a band or a song you like and then they create a radio station for you based on that selection. You have the opportunity to rate every song that they play, which further refines the selections. First off, this is just a really good idea. It's like you love a certain type of music, but maybe you're tired of listening to the same albums over and over again or you want to discover something new. Also if you have a job where you sit in front of a computer all day or something of that nature, this would be way better than listening to a real radio station. Every few songs they play a sponsor commercial, but only one. You can just stream it over the internet and hook up some headphones or whatever. They also have a free iPhone app so you can listen to it anywhere.

So today is the first time I've listened to this for any extended period of time. To start with, I put that I wanted to hear songs similar to Arcade Fire, whom I love. So obviously they play an Arcade Fire song first. Cool. Then the next song is "Let Down" from Radiohead. I have also developed a recent pseudo-obsession with Radiohead. And "Let Down" is easily my favorite Radiohead song. So we're off to a good start with this Pandora thing. The next song they play I've never heard before, but it's awesome. It's called "Hummingbird" by Wilco. Then the next song is similarly awesome. A song called "Nothing Better" by The Postal Service. Anyway, the point is that this Pandora thing is a pretty amazing idea along with similarly amazing execution to this point. Not all the songs are super fantastic, but they are all at least pretty good.

Anyway, I go to iTunes and I end up buying those two albums from Wilco and The Postal Service based on the previews and the strength of those songs. I'm afraid that if I keep listening to Pandora Radio, I'm gonna end up spending a lot of money on iTunes. Now, I've listened to about 20 songs so far and I haven't ended up buying all of the albums, so that's good. But I have a real fear that this may be something I end up putting a lot into.

UPDATE: PS - I strongly encourage everyone to go to Pandora, put in A Tribe Called Quest and sit back and relax. Make sure you have like 3 hours to kill, though, because once they play "The Reminisce Over You" by Pete Rock and CL Smooth, you'll never want to turn it off.