Music re-association sites

What sites do you like for listening to blurbs of one group and having it cross-reference you to other bands (unknown or huge) that have a similar vibe?

Is it true Pandora is going to have to shut down?

I have become quite enamoured of Last.fm. I never used Pandora seriously and don’t know anything about it being shut down.

Allmusic.com works well, too. The thing I like about Allmusic is under each band’s bio they list Similar Artists, See Also (other bands that share members with the one you’re looking at), and then Influenced By and Followers, to put the band in a historical context.

Yeah, that information is definitely up-front on allmusic, but that site is reference material, not a recommendations service. Last.fm has clickable band member and label info down at the bottom right for most bands, so that information is kind of there.

I have been really impressed with the job that Last.fm does of pointing me at music that I will actually like. If my tastes were more mainstream, it might not be that big a deal. When I use their service the way it’s intended (scrobble my listens religiously) and then have the site play my Neighborhood or my Recommendations, it’s pretty astounding how good a job they’re doing. I don’t know where allmusic gets its information, but I’m pretty sure that there’s an editor who is manually plugging in those related and “see also” bands. The people at last.fm are empiricists, and their model works really really well.

Seriously, try Pandora. It’s so mind numbingly brilliant not only on a musical level but on a user interface/experience level as well.

I would gladly pay a subscription fee for Pandora to keep it from being shut down.

It’s not that I’ve never used it, I have just not used it “seriously.” Can you explain what would make you prefer it over Last.fm? One of the things I like about Last.fm is that you can actually specify certain songs to listen to, which was not the case the last time I tried Pandora. You can’t do it with everything, obviously, but they at least indicate what you can and cannot listen to at will.

edit: Okay, I just went to Pandora and entered 5 or 6 of the bands I have discovered through Last.fm (as well as a couple of my favorite bands), and Pandora has never heard of any of them. That was a problem I ran into a lot when I tried it out before. Also, Last.fm has biographical information, links to YouTube videos, an event manager that tracks when people are on tour, etc that are all linked to artists.

I use Pandora.fm. It’s the best mash-up EVAR.

http://pandorafm.real-ity.com/

Hmm. I’ve found a few groups that aren’t on Pandora but for those that are, it’s been great. I just love how smooth, fast and high quality Pandora is. It also has the bio, discography, links, discussion, and more for each band. No tour dates or vids though.

I don’t think that other information had been introduced when I first tried Pandora (it was a couple of years ago), but I might have just forgotten about it. The main issue for me, obviously, is what music is actually on there, so that’s a deal breaker.

Machfive: The only reason I care about my listens being scrobbled is because I want to use Last.fm’s recommendation service.

I liked Pandora but didn’t listen to it regularly. Allmusic on the other hand has been my go-to source for discovering new music for years now. I think I just like reading reviews to get a sense of a band and their work. I know the keywords that I have to look for to find things I like.

I tried Pandora over and over again over the last few years, and it never really worked for me.

Last.fm has really been a wonder.