Pandora's Squeezebox compatibility unleashes freshness on your playlist

We've all done it, gotten in a musical rut with no hope of escape, piling Journey record upon Journey record in a sort of trippy yet destructive cycle. Pandora can create a whole new station of streaming music based on a favorite artist or song, determined by 6 years of research by their crack team of song listeners, which it then describes its reasoning for and shoots out to your Squeezebox for full-on stereo enjoyment. Slim Devices is currently offering a free 90-day trial for Squeezebox owners, who can keep the service going for $36 a year, not a bad price to pay to finally Escape that Infinity rut you've been Captured in for Generations.

[Via I4U]

[Chris Bonthron @ Feb 9th 2006 12:44PM]

I like the incorporation of the Journey album titles into the story above. (c;

[illwafer @ Feb 9th 2006 12:59PM]

man, i had the journey game for atari ;P

[dpinder @ Feb 9th 2006 1:17PM]

I love pandora!

[Mike @ Feb 9th 2006 1:32PM]

I wish the music and rating associations were as good as the GUI. It takes for EVER to dial in a station, I had the same frustrations with Launchcast but eventually got it dialed. Still struggle with the Pando...

[Jerad @ Feb 9th 2006 1:35PM]

Last.fm (Previously Audioscrobbler) does that, and it is free. Sure, there isnt a plugin written for Squeezebox, but they still can take your music tastes and recommend (usually) compatible bands. I think it is much more worth its money than this would be.

[Justin @ Feb 9th 2006 1:38PM]

Pandora is possibly one of the best online music services I've come across in a long time. It started out that you could only listen to 10 hours or so without registering and subscribing. Now, it's become completely free (although it will ask you to register a username at one point). As soon as they went to this new business model, I found myself more compelled to subscribe than ever - I want them and the Music Genome Project to last a long time!

[Ian Jardine @ Feb 9th 2006 2:19PM]

If it's free why does Slimdevices charge $36.00 p.a. after a trial period?

[yet another Matt @ Feb 9th 2006 2:27PM]

This has been around for ages, and i loved using it, the thing is tho, its pretty good at choosing music for you that sounds like music you already like

[Lauren @ Feb 9th 2006 2:45PM]

@Ian: $36 is the price that the maker of the Squeezebox device is charging for the streaming; Pandora itself, which is a separate service, is free.

[pableu @ Feb 9th 2006 3:58PM]

@Ian & Lauren
If you use pandora for free, it displays ad banners. If you don't wanna see the ads, you have to pay 36$.
The Squeezebox cannot display ads, so my guess is that Pandora charges the 36$. Same as for the ad-free pandora.

[Nick @ Feb 10th 2006 12:05AM]

@Jerad: There is a lastFM plugin available for the SlimServer:

http://petherton.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/SlimServer/#LastFM

It works pretty well.

[Tom @ Feb 10th 2006 12:10AM]

Sweet, Journey rocks! This brings new Frontiers to my desire to be Raised on Radio, man.

[Ian @ Feb 10th 2006 1:56AM]

I love Pandora, it's shown me quite a few bands now that I am keen on.

If only they had this ability to stream to XM or Sirius. I would DEFINATELY pay for that.

[Rick @ Feb 10th 2006 3:55AM]

There actually is a beta XM streamer for the squeezebox

[Ed @ Feb 10th 2006 5:53AM]

Pandora is so sweet. Not sure I'd subscribe at 36 bux a year