“We know what you love now, we know what you’ll love next …”
With that promise, Pandora is announcing New Music Stations that it says will feature “handpicked,” just-released music.
Pandora has often highlighted its combination of “musicologists” and its special algorithm-based technology for characterizing musical content; in this instance it says, “The secret sauce behind New Music Stations is Pandora’s team of musicologists who have decades of diverse music industry experience.”
But isn’t that what traditional broadcast radio does, or tries to do? Pandora Director of Music Programming Ron Nenni sought to differentiate the Pandora offering in the announcement, saying that with the “constant stream” of new music and “generalized recommendations that are made for the masses on mainstream radio formats,” new talent can go undiscovered.
According to the company announcement, “Each week, we’ll handpick music recently released for each New Music Station from a unique blend of emerging, underground and well-known artists across all of your favorite genres. With thousands of new songs released each week, finding exactly what will appeal to your unique taste in music can be a challenge. We’ll take the headache out of the process by curating a wide variety of recommendations for you on a weekly basis across Pop, Country, Hip Hop, Dance, and more.” The company deems it “next-level discovery.”