Has Pandora given up on the "music genome project" thing?

[Skaeger]

I don't know if the station music-finding ability has drastically declined or if I never really used it this way before, but I am finding myself very disappointed with the radio stations lately.

I made a station based on Billy Boyd's "The Last Goodbye" but I guess Pandora just looks at the album because all it plays is cinematic music like the rest of the hobbit soundtracks and hanz Zimmer? It completely ignores the song and just goes by artist and album as far as I can tell?

I tried to make a station from some of the heavier and intense songs from the Darktide soundtrack and I get the soft, lullaby themes from the gentle parts of the fellowship of the ring. So it's not even looking for similar albums and just saying "it's a soundtrack, right?"

I'm getting growling metal on an instrumental folk music station because I added a single song from that band that was instrumental folk music for "added variety"

And I notice that Pandora plugs songs I liked on completely different stations just because obviously if I liked it on my metal station, I'd love it in a sea shanty station, and who doesn't need a little lindsay Stirling in every single station I make?

I have to thumb down a out 50 songs to get a single one that is even remotely related if the song is unusual for the artist and I'm starting to lose interest in fighting Pandora over this.

Their "smart" radio was the main difference between them and Spotify, but I am just not seeing it anymore.

Am I missing something?

[Skaeger]

This comment was not constructive and I just care about the original post but I don't know how to delete it.

[wode]

I was just asking myself the same thing after the past few weeks of listening.

A few stations that I've curated over the years have become indistinguishable. My Phil Collins station, once something special, is now just "oldies." (I've had to thumb down a good chunk of the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack.) The experience isn't much different from listening to music on YouTube and letting it autoplay without logging in.

Didn't find much else when I searched the web, but this discussion was one of the top results. You're not alone.

[heresjolly]

I really like the instrumentals to the song Mountains by Message to Bears. I was about to head over to Pandora to hopefully find similar songs when I was reminded of this same experience the last few times I tried to use it. It's especially glaring when you pick extremely varied artists like Puscifer. Yes, nothing but A Perfect Circle and Tool is exactly what I was looking for when I started a radio stationed based on The Humbling River. 

[Stereophile]

Definitely have noticed a change over time. Used to be I’d create a station from a song and enjoy being introduced to a wide variety of similar pieces, often from artists I’d never heard before. Now it seems like my stations are just very limited playlists.