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I too listen to different genres of music depending on mood, and I hate when they mix. I used to make mix tapes and later audio CDs like "Alt Rock #" and "EDM #

I too listen to different genres of music depending on mood, and I hate when they mix. I used to make mix tapes and later audio CDs like "Alt Rock #" and "EDM #" and I had dozens of those. Since I went to digital music, I've had the same problem with practically every bit of software and streaming service. They all seem to have some mode where it wants to just mix stuff between genres and it drives me nuts. My current service is Google Music, and the (auto-generated) "likes" playlist, which really contains only songs that I genuinely really like, even annoys me due to the mixing of genres. I've found what works best for discovery is to make playlists (by genre, of course) and then from there pick "Start Radio". That is my main way of discovering new music, and when I find songs I enjoy I try to add them to the playlist, too, and "Like" them if they're especially great. But I do always feel like I'm against the grain, wondering how anyone can ever use any of the auto-generated playlists that aren't constrained by genre, and why anyone would ever build such a thing.

ysavir 2y ago
I use Pandora and I'm able to maintain genre-specific stations pretty well. Sometimes it will try to mix something new in but I just dislike that song and it happily keeps playing the genre(s) that I chose for that channel.
- gregmac 2y ago
  I don't know about Pandora, but I've always been cautious to use "dislike" in that way, because I don't know the scope. There's a difference between "I don't want to ever hear this" vs "I don't want to hear it on this station". I use it for the former but not the latter.
  - SamBam 2y ago
    Yeah, the opaqueness of your actions in Pandora and in other streaming services is always annoying. Likewise, Pandora allows you to create a station with multiple seeds, or (is it the same?) like songs within a station. I used to use that, and then I felt like it was narrowing the breadth of the station. I realized that in my mental model I wanted it to be a station of Artist A plus Artist B, so a more expansive station, but Pandora seemed to be treating it as "Artist A ∩ Artist B," i.e. just the small intersection.
  - ysavir 2y ago
    My experience has been that dislikes are station specific. I regularly dislike songs on channels in order to shape the genre, even if I actively listen to that song on other stations. Pandora's whole identity revolves around stations, so it would be weird if dislikes were global. I've found the pandora community post below that seems to confirm it, though I'm not sure whether the community admin answering the question is actually a pandora employee or not. https://community.pandora.com/t5/My-Collection/What-if-you-like-a-song-but-it-s-playing-on-the-wrong-channel/m-p/84918/highlight/true#M18038 https://community.pandora.com/t5/My-Collection/What-if-you-l...

ysavir 2y ago

I use Pandora and I'm able to maintain genre-specific stations pretty well. Sometimes it will try to mix something new in but I just dislike that song and it happily keeps playing the genre(s) that I chose for that channel.

gregmac 2y ago
I don't know about Pandora, but I've always been cautious to use "dislike" in that way, because I don't know the scope. There's a difference between "I don't want to ever hear this" vs "I don't want to hear it on this station". I use it for the former but not the latter.
- SamBam 2y ago
  Yeah, the opaqueness of your actions in Pandora and in other streaming services is always annoying. Likewise, Pandora allows you to create a station with multiple seeds, or (is it the same?) like songs within a station. I used to use that, and then I felt like it was narrowing the breadth of the station. I realized that in my mental model I wanted it to be a station of Artist A plus Artist B, so a more expansive station, but Pandora seemed to be treating it as "Artist A ∩ Artist B," i.e. just the small intersection.
- ysavir 2y ago
  My experience has been that dislikes are station specific. I regularly dislike songs on channels in order to shape the genre, even if I actively listen to that song on other stations. Pandora's whole identity revolves around stations, so it would be weird if dislikes were global. I've found the pandora community post below that seems to confirm it, though I'm not sure whether the community admin answering the question is actually a pandora employee or not. https://community.pandora.com/t5/My-Collection/What-if-you-like-a-song-but-it-s-playing-on-the-wrong-channel/m-p/84918/highlight/true#M18038 https://community.pandora.com/t5/My-Collection/What-if-you-l...