Pandora is not accessible in Canada. I believe it only works for our Amerifriends.

Apparently...

It's a shame, this site was too good to be true I gave it a try some time ago when our beloved major friends had not yet intervened, and it was really a great application.

The link here is to the Squeezebox review

Dear Pandora Visitor,

We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for most listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.

...

Etc.

Restricted in Spain too

Maybe it can be accessed via proxy, I'll have to try that

I loved it deeply. Until I couldn't listen to it anymore. I would pay quite some money to get a pandora appliance for my stereo. If it would be mobile and would work via UMTS, I would pay even more for it.

But I'm in Germany...

btw. Mike, how do you listen to it? Aren't you in Canada?

are you sure it has only been around 2 years? i'm pretty sure it's older than that... i used pandora for (what seems like...) years before they started actively blocking people... i used a bogus ZIP code in my profile (90210, hahaha)... it was GREAT. i actually found a lot of great artists on there and bought some stuff on amazon.

i dunno what it's like now... but i'm pretty sure sooner or later, it will be corrupted by big label interests. end up as some cheap marketing tool for the RIAA labels...

while I could acces it it was indeed very good. unfortunately at some point they closed me down. a proxy provided a solution, but even that was closed off after a while.

perhaps if you sign up using a proxy with a us based email they won't know.

I'm in Vancouver, and I can listen to the station just fine.

This station has Anaal Nathrakh

Very intriguing. They have attempted to catagorize music based on characteristics of the sound. If the sound appeals to you, they find other artists/songs they think you will like. I'm trying it right now, and I'm only on the first song, so it's hard to say what they will come up with. I typed in Avenged Sevenfold, and it came up with a great song that they never played on the radio. So far so good. Sound quality is great, website is very easy to use.

Alright! Already found a couple CD's I need to go buy.

Now I recall using Pandora either early this year, or late last year... It wasn't good enough for music I like listening to (a specific subgenre of EDM), but a friend was into some weird type of rock, and it played him a ton of songs he liked.

Devon told me about http://www.last.fm/ this morn: a free, global alternative.

yes, but I entered the zip of the US univ I attended years ago... and that did the trick despite the .ca in my email address.

how do you get on with a bogus zip? i was blocked based on my ip address originating from australia..

Don't know. Maybe some US/Canada IP addresses are difficult to differentiate? Vancouver is just 20~30 miles from the border...

Do to the Fantastic Record companies lobbying the FCC, they got royalties raised for Internet radio people to rates that are basically impossible to pay. As such, Pandora had to block traffic from outside the United states. Some border cities got lucky (like Vancouver). I'm not entirely sure why though.

But for everyone else, last.fm is pretty damn good too. I prefer last.fm to be honest, works a bit better and it doesn't limit the number of songs you can skip per hour, and you can install a plugin in for your media player and it will learn your tastes based on what you listen to. I use Pandora when I'm not home and want something to listen to.

I prefer last.fm also. But if you want to use pandora outside us VPN helps.

Odd about them being restricted due to royalties, 'cause every time I listen to Pandora I end up over on Amazon buying backlist CDs. It's great at reminding you of less-famous artists. Given that most of the FM jazz and classical stations that I have available to me work from a very limited greatest-hitsy playlist, this is the best way I know of finding out about music.

It would be nice if there were something approaching lossless compression available on Pandora though I guess we have to wait for a better internet. Don't want to restart that old debate, but I do find that after a little while the thinness of the compressed sound gets to me.

Thanks for the tip on pandora.com! Now I can listen to some wonderful customized Jazz radio whenever I want!

Tried last.fm, entered a well-known artist from the EDM subgenre I like. It started playing a remix from a couple of years ago, instead of a decade ago... Skipped a song, got a mislabeled remix of another well-known artist, same as above. Skipped another song, got a totally different subgenre. Gave up.

Yeah that's the problem with listening to a bit more unusual music styles. I'm into similar music, a bit EBM and "futurepop" (god that name is stupid).

I tried pandora a while ago and had a similar experience. Got a couple of of good tunes (which I already have on CD) from one or two artists, but then it sidetracked into completely different genres. After I had rated down a few of the suggested songs it pretty much switched between 3 or 4 songs. Gave up after that too.

I have little experience in the last.fm streams, even though I've been scrobbling the music I listen to for quite a while. The player I use, Amarok, has a great "intelligent" playlist generator that I use instead of the streams.

Totally agree. The number of new CDs I want just from the last couple days of Pandora and Last.FM is ridiculous! And I still haven't even tried opening up a new station (other than Madeleine Peyroux)


Really? I haven't noticed, my impression is that the quality is very good, but perhaps right now I'm much more atuned to the new music. Hmmm.... mostly, I've been listening through Squeezebox3 and my stereo -- Linn amps and a pair of NHT 2.9 spkrs -- which are upstairs, from my office downstairs.

Both Pandora and Last.fm are great. I generally find Pandora cooler though. It's so simple just enter a bunch of artists and songs you like and boom you have the "perfect" radio station. I always use Last.fm just as a log of what I listen to on iTunes and iPod and other media players on my computer.

BTW anyone wondering about why they block access of international users read the first 3 posts of May 2007 on the Pandora Blog. It's a totally stupid thing and you can also read more at SaveNetRadio(dot)org

Interesting. These are the 3 posts by Tom, CTO @ Pandora, at the bottom of this long page.

Not sure if you are interested or not. I just bumped by and saw your Pandora cravings.

I use the site called www . globalpandora . com and it does seem to do the trick for now.

kiko

Most retarded thing to ever do by the way, blocking people from being introduced to new music. Web radio brought a lot of new artists in my scope of listening, which resulted in quite a few buys.

Shame the entertainment industry is such a slug when it comes to innovative projects which could be both fun and profitable for them.