Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a discovery tool Pandora's value is debatable. Curation works better than recommenders. To my great surprise, I continue to discover new acts, music thru the radio. Just like when I was kid. KBCS.fm and KEXP.org have great speciality shows. They also do a good job of posting their play lists, streaming archives, linking to artists, promoting upcoming shows, etc. I've rarely discovered new stuff from a recommender…
I've had the opposite experience from you. I don't listen to much broadcast radio any more. I used to use Last.FM's recommender to find new bands to listen to, now I just use Spotify - after a few weeks the "Discover Weekly" playlist is spot on, even with a very eclectic taste in music ( http://www.last.fm/user/voltagex/library/tracks?date_preset=... ). I've discovered entire genres via Spotify and last.fm and gone t…
Aside: I very much want to use scrobble (or equiv) to consolidate all my faves. It's on my ever growing to do list.