Favorite station not playing songs I want

[GreatJuan]

Hello! My station "My Land is Burning" suddenly started playing songs that I do not want on masse without any changes to Thumps Up or Thumps Down songs.  I've had this happen before over the years (I've had the station since 2007), but it has been getting worse in the last couple of years, and the only solution was to completely wipe my Thumbs Down/Thumps Up and start back from the beginning.  It is getting tiresome doing so though.  Every time I get the station where I want it lasts a few months and I have to start over. 

Is there a reason this keeps happening?  Why does it only affect my favorite and most listened to station?  Is there some way to help prevent this from happening more in the future?

Thanks for any help!

I would like to have some sort of official response as to why this issue continues to happen for someone who has used Pandora since its infancy.  These issues have been compounding far too much recently to the point that I have seriously considered leaving the platform for a more generic one.

[AdamPandora · Accepted solution]

@GreatJuan Sorry to hear that your stations aren't playing the way you want them to.

Pandora stations adapt with every song to try to find the right music for you. It does this by using a combination of the detailed information in the Music Genome Project, the station seeds and Thumbs feedback you have given along with feedback given by other listeners under similar conditions.

There are a number of variables that come into play when selecting the next song:

• The complete range of musical attributes for all of the songs we have by the artist you used to create the station. For example, for a station based on Brian Eno, you might hear rock songs and ambient music. You might try creating a station from one of the artist's songs instead (e.g. Lucky Star by Madonna). This should make the station much more specific.

• The type of feedback you've given on the station (all the Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down ratings) and any additional artist or song seeds you've added to the station. Pandora lumps all this together and tries to determine what the best musical match is based on our musical analysis.

To improve your stations, here are a couple of things to try:

1. Continue to Thumb down tracks that do not fit. This will prevent that song from playing again, and Pandora will learn more about what you don't want to hear.
2. Make sure each of the thumbs-up you've given fits in with the type of station you are trying to create. If not, then remove that thumbs-up rating from the station page.
3. When listening from a computer, a mobile device or the Sonos app, you can access Pandora Modes to customize your station experience. You can pick different modes like Crowd Faves, Discovery and Deep Cuts.

Of course, Pandora Premium subscribers can also create custom playlists in order to have complete control of what they hear on Pandora. If you want more information about that, let me know.

Hope this helps!

[GreatJuan]

@AdamPandora Unfortunately the very basic info you provided does not help with the issue that I asked about.  It is NOT about what songs have been thumbed up or down, it's about my playlist being modified without any input after several months. 

This being said I may have found the root cause to the issue, because it is now affecting some of my other stations.  Pandora is/has been losing the rights to play certain songs/artists.  Tracks that were once thumbed up or down are now shown as unavailable.  Which means regardless of where my thumbs are, my list can be modified by Pandora itself without any input from myself.

This is a real shame.

[mbd007]

This is now happening to me on my iPhone and Alexa. My 2 favorite “My Stations” are John Stewart Radio and “Leonard Cohen Radio”. Pandora has suddenly start play a mix from all My Stations except music by the artist selected. 

Luckily their are other services out there, and I thank my lucky stars that I never signed up to pay for the service so I do not now have to figure out how to cancel. 

[adw2612]

Pandora got bought out and now they have crappy algorithms for music selection.

[jamesgray27]

Yeah, for some reason since yesterday Pandora refuses to play any of the songs I've upvoted and continuously plays indie artists that are terrible. I'm about to ditch this website due to it. If you can't play what I want you to, have spent so much time upvoting songs, just for you to play whatever the hell you want, I'll go to your competitor.