Ideas: Blocking / Muting Artists & Genres

[bjoyce2]

New Feature Idea: Create Rules about what bands you never want to hear.  If I select a Genre but there are certain bands I never want to hear, there should be a way to create a rule. i.e. I select the 70's Rock Genre but I never want to hear any music from Sting, Rush, Styx, Journey, Kiss, etc.  then allow me to create a rule eliminating them fron the selection algorithm.

Moderator Edit: Edited title for clarity

[Pete4]

This is the best explanation for why Pandora does this. My complaint was that for a couple of Dean Martin songs Pandora was playing a version that came from a Kevin Spacey “duets” type album he vainly recorded during his Bobby Darin era. Pandora clearly has chosen to include the Kevin Spacey version of several songs because it costs them less  to broadcast than the original Dean Martin versions without Kevin Spacey’s arrogance dubbed in. The version that Pandora plays does not even credit Kevin Spacey, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Kevin’s not getting his cut (although I’ll bet he needs every penny at this point in his career). Ultimately, we’re literally talking pennies per hour that Pandora is squeezing. Since I don’t pay for a premium membership, and I probably have ten years invested in creating my channels and preferences, I’ve given up trying to fight City Hall here. I’ll just skip whatever offends me and move on with my life. It is free, after all.

Moderator Edit: Format

[I_A]

There are definitely a lot of good reasons to complain about the politics that define the goods and services we use.  A few pennies is the difference between a private playlist and the corporate scheduled line-up.  As far as City Hall is concerned, if you know the rules well enough and you've got a legitimate reason to complain, keep filling that paperwork, give it enough time and the red tape will clear itself out, eventually.  Sometimes, when there's nothing for the complaints process to solve, posting you opinion and venting your frustrations just makes you feel better about things.  Free radio places you subject to someone else's listening decisions but a lot of people say it's better than nothing. 

[paultmaack]

@AdamPandora What's the status on this? It's obvious that it has a LOT of positive reactions. Also: Do a Google search for "Pandora should have a never play this Artist again button." and you'll see that there's thousands and thousands of people who want this feature. 

@AlyssaPandora have you made any progress on this clear deficiency in the product? 

[BradburyS]

Hi A - I contacted Pandora. Got an auto response case # email. Then never
heard back, but miracle I've not heard anymore C&W either.
I know there are thousands out there complaining about this, but try
emailing support. I cross my fings it's not a fluke.

[ElainCorrine]

I am at the point where I am going to cancel my sub and switch platforms. When the same song I have down voted pops up repeatedly, it's obvious Pandora isn't listening, and I don't like it when a company thinks it knows better than me, what I like and dislike, or ignores my dislikes and tries to shove that artist in my face over and over and over and over and over again. I've literally down voted Tom Petty, only to have the song I just down voted, show up again 2 songs later. With the down vote still showing.

Pandora is obviously NOT listening to it's paying customers, and so.. I'll be cancelling my account and removing their app from my devices.

[Pete4]

@ElainCorrine  Agreed, they obviously are not listening, and the likely reason is that their revenue stream from advertising far exceeds their membership fees.  I was ready to ditch this platform three years ago when they started injecting political ideology in their advertising.  Alas, I didn’t quit, and I’m sure the thousands who agree with me didn’t leave, either.

This “platform” and the software/algorithms they wrote over a decade ago obviously can’t be changed, or else the cost cannot be justified.  Until they start seeing their bottom line numbers suffer, nothing will change.  Even if the numbers do begin to falter, it’s not likely they’ll do much about it.  They’ve probably already made much more money than they ever imagined, and it just keeps rolling in.  I pay for Amazon Prime and I rarely use it because Pandora is free and easy.  That’s probably stupid on my part.

Whatever you choose, I hope you find a better experience than this one!

[SCOTTTOMEY]

Please! Michael Jackson was a pedifile that ruined lives. I do not want to support him.

[sc3604]

Not having the option to block artists has been in a consistent complaint for years. Why is Pandora sleeping on this feature? Is the contractual money so good that it's a better business choice to ignore a long-standing app deficit? 

[paultmaack]

I don't know what their major malfunction is. I heard a Red Hot Chili Peppers song the other day. I was luckily in a position where I was able to hit the thumbs down button before I heard the singer, but it was enough to ruin my mood for the next few hours. 

The Pandora devs seem to lack the understanding that music can have a visceral effect on people, and there are certain bands or songs that can instigate a fugue or other intense state. There's no jokes, no hyperbole here. If I was forced to listen to either Red Hot Chili Peppers, or Guns & Roses - I'd cancel my subscription. I'm not being dramatic here. I absolutely HATE those bands. Hate. Not "strongly dislike" or "really rather not listen to" or anything else. I've been using Pandora since 2008, and have been paying for the ad-free experience for the past few years. I'm quite happy to keep paying for the foreseeable future. I'm literally saying that if I don't hear anything from those two bands - I'm likely to keep paying for my subscription for the next 30 years. I cannot stress enough that if either of those bands shows up on my feed and I'm forced to listen to them that I will be cancelling my subscription and move to another service.

I'm an IT professional who is about to finish up a Bachelor's degree in Computer Programming. I can tell you with absolute certainty that there's no reason whatsoever to not fix this. They are literally sacrificing their customers and losing untold amounts of money because they don't want to have one of their staff members who's ALREADY BEING PAID take an afternoon and implement a feature that thousands of people would appreciate, and scores of people have been asking about for the last decade. 

@Pandora what possible reason could you have for alienating your customers, and neglecting to offer this super simple, easy-to-implement feature that the lack of it is losing you customers on a regular basis? 

[Pete4]

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