Songs and artists added as variety do not play

[JSMCCOY64]

About a dozen songs out of many that I have added to the add variety section will not play. Other songs by those artists will play, but not the particular songs I typed in. And I've waited for months for them to play

[mgoodhew]

I have the same issue. I try to add variety artists to a station I created and never hear them. Most of the time I hear a handful of artist I like, but over and over again. I have favored thousands of artists and their songs, added them to "add Variety" but never hear them.  I am disappointed that I hear a handful of my artists, over and over again, instead of the thousand of artists I have favored.

[AdamPandora · Accepted solution]

@JSMCCOY64 I understand that it's frustrating not to hear the song that you've seeded a station with, but there's no way to control when or how often particular songs will play on free Pandora or Pandora Plus, so it's not possible to create a station and hear that track play right away (though it could happen by chance). Because of our licenses, we have to limit the predictability of a certain song or artist from playing on those services.

That said, for complete control of what you hear on Pandora, try Pandora Premium. It combines our industry leading internet radio service with on-demand listening and easy playlist generation.

Alternatively, you can start a complimentary session simply by searching our library for a song or album, and clicking play. This will trigger a short advertisement, after which you can enjoy content on-demand.

Hope this is helpful. Thanks so much for listening to Pandora!

[AdamPandora]

@mgoodhew I understand that it's frustrating not to hear the artist that you've seeded a station with, but at this time, listeners have limited control over when or how often particular artists or songs will play on Pandora stations.

That said, you should be able to use Pandora Modes to customize your station experience when you're listening from a computer, mobile device or the Sonos app. You can pick different modes like Artist Only, which will play only tracks from the artist headlining your station (unless you've added variety to your station, in which case it will play tracks from those artists as well).

Please keep in mind that Artist Only mode will only exist on relevant stations.

For complete control of what you hear on Pandora, you can also try Pandora Premium. It combines our industry leading internet radio service with on-demand listening and easy playlist generation.

Hope this helps!

[brake4bots]

Seed songs never play on Pandora Radio even with a Premium account

I tested both Pandora Plus and Pandora Premium. I selected my "Cooley Street" station which has 16 seed songs. I logged more than 800 plays. Yes, 800.

Total number of times a seed song played on Pandora Plus: 0

Total number of times a seed song played on Pandora Premium: 0

Yes, I understand that the powers that be don't want users to be able to game Pandora radio to work like a playlist, but this is ridiculous. A reasonable person would expect that a seed song would have just as much chance of being played as any other song that fits the station's profile. No more, no less.

Seed songs are clearly being blocked on Pandora radio. 800 plays is easily proof of that, especially considering that the station mostly repeats about 200 songs (another issue for another day).

It's especially aggravating that upgrading to a Premium account makes no difference. But hey, it doesn't have to be account based. As long as your algorithms don't pick seed songs any more often than other songs that fit the station profile, it's not going to be a playlist substitute.

Your programmers can fix this!

Please 1) confirm that, yes, seed songs never play on Pandora radio, and 2) tell us what is being done to address this issue or, if it's truly intentional, why?

Please do not suggest making a playlist. That's the standard response I've seen time and again on this board. It doesn't help with radio mode. And yes, I know that I can remove all the seed songs and instead add the artists and then thumbs up those songs when they play. But that changes the station. I may like a single song from an artist (and would like that song to play once in a while) but may not necessarily like other songs from that artist. That approach may work alright eventually (if I'm diligent with my thumbing), but I shouldn't have to go to all that effort to fix something that can, and should, be fixed on Pandora's end.

[FrostLab]

@brake4botsAMEN! WELL said, THANK you bruh!  I've noticed this same problem & it's just as asinine as it sounds!

Re "it's not possible to create a station and hear that track play right away"-@AdamPandora  ...Dude, what are you talking about?  The OP literally said "And I've waited for months for them to play."  No one here is expecting it to play seed songs immediately, nor complaining that it doesn't.  It's the fact that it seems they're being straight-up AVOIDed for reasons unknown to any of us.  Can you help us understand that, please?

[Abrom]

I've been using Pandora almost daily for several years now, got Pandora Plus a few years back, and there are just some things that don't make sense, to the point that I think things must be broken. From when I started Pandora, up to until recently, I would just add bands to my station's variety to listen them. As the years went by, I heard a majority of the songs these bands had. However, I noticed there was still a large portion of songs from these bands that Pandora just never played, and thus, never gave me the opportunity to give them a thumbs up. So starting a few months ago, I decided to try to correct this by adding specific songs to my variety. Since then, I still haven't heard any of the songs I added to my variety. Pandora has played related songs, songs from similar bands, and even played previously unplayed songs from the same albums as the songs I added...but I didn't add THOSE songs because I didn't like them.

For example, I recently added a lot of songs from Killing's Time album The Method. I didn't have this band in my variety before this, and I just added the songs, not the band. Since then, Pandora has only played two Killing Time songs, and they weren't the ones I added, I did not like them, and I gave them both thumbs down. It hasn't played any Killing Time since, but since Killing Time was the first Grunge related music I added to my variety (Killing Time is mostly metal, but there is some Grunge to them as well), I am now thumbs-downing a huge wave of grunge music that keeps popping up. Very frustrating.

It has me wondering if I added songs I don't like from the bands I like, would I finally get Pandora to play the songs I do like? Is Pandora incapable of playing songs added to variety? Are some songs not available unless I have Pandora Premium? And I know for sure that Pandora does have these songs I'm adding, because when you add a song to the variety, it pops up for you to click on to add it; if Pandora doesn't have the song, it won't pop up and you aren't allowed to add it. Also, I've listened to some of these songs on Pandora Premium after listening to an ad to get a temporary session. Speaking of which.....

When you listen to an ad and get your temporary Pandora Premium, that's a separate station from your Pandora Plus one, right? Cuz I found no way of giving a thumbs up on Pandora Premium songs. I even clicked on the extra options for the songs, and picked for them to be added to my thumbs up list...but when checking the thumbs up list for my station, and my thumbs up playlists later, none of the Pandora Premium songs made it over to them. Is there anyway of getting Pandora Premium songs to play on my Pandora Plus station, other than adding to variety? And speaking of the thumbs-up list.....

When I listen to a song on Pandora Premium and then go to My Collection, as you can see in the screenshot, there is a My Thumbs Up playlist with 993 songs and Eric's Thumbs Ups with 969 (And it's important that I specify going to My Collection while using Pandora Premium, cuz these thumbs up playlists don't appear in My Collection on my station normally). Both playlists update with my latest thumbs ups from my Eric's Music station. So, what's the difference between them? My mom had a station she listened to for a little while; is our combined thumbs-up songs in the My Thumbs list and that's why there's a difference in the number? But also, if you look at the second screenshot, when I compare the thumbs up playlist numbers to the thumbs up for my Eric's Music station, there's a huge difference. Are these playlists missing my older songs? Why is there 2 of them? Did I make some playlists long ago when I was drunk? I am so confused. The big thing I want to know is - If I delete these thumbs up playlists, does that delete the thumbs up from my Eric's Music station?

First screenshot, playlistsSecond screenshot, station thumbs up

[AdamPandora]

@Abrom I'm happy to address each of your questions.

Songs and artists added as variety do not play:

To begin, I went ahead and moved your post into this existing thread: Songs and artists added as variety do not play

I've taken a look at your account, and I think the problem here is that you've added an excessive amount of seeds to one station. Adding variety to a station doesn't narrow the song pool that Pandora chooses from, nor does it increase your chances of hearing a particular song or artist. Rather, it opens up your station to a lot of variety, which can make for some undesirable matches. I would suggest editing this station to remove those extra seeds. As a general rule, stations seem to work best with no more than 3-4 seeds added.

To edit your stations on a computer, first make sure you're signed into your Pandora account. Then:

1. Click on the name of the station you'd like to edit. If the station is not available from your Now Playing page, click on the My Collection button first, sort your collection by Stations, and select the name of the station you'd like to edit. This will take you to a station details page which shows you information about your personalized station.
2. You can remove a station seed from your station by scrolling down to the Station Created From section. You can delete a particular seed by tapping the ellipsis (or three dots), or by hovering over it and selecting Delete.
3. To delete a Thumbed track, scroll down to the Thumb History section of this page. By default, this section will show your Thumbed up tracks first. If you'd like to see your Thumbed down tracks, click on the Thumbs down icon. Next, either select the ellipsis next to the Thumb or hover your cursor over the name of the track to reveal a hidden menu. As before, select Delete.

You might find that Pandora works best if you create multiple stations with different artists or songs. From there, you can utilize our shuffle feature to hear a variety of musical styles in one listening session. Shuffle plays a one-song set from a random station that you've included in your mix and then moves onto another song (from a different station). This is significantly different from listening to a single Pandora station.

If you need help using or editing your Shuffle, let me know.

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Unable to give a Thumbs Up to songs played on demand with Pandora Premium:

The option to give Thumb ratings is only available when listening to your collected stations (ex: Eric's Music or Mom's Music).

They will not be available on other on-demand content like albums or when searching and playing specific songs, however.

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My Thumbs Up playlist:

My Thumbs Up is a playlist that collects your Thumbed-Up tracks from each of your stations. When you sign up for Pandora Premium, we begin it by adding your 1,000 most recent Thumbs (if you have that many). Moving forward, every time you Thumb Up a song on one of your stations or eligible playlists, it will be automatically added to My Thumbs Up.

I see you currently have two stations:

• Eric's Music - 1,266 Thumbs Up
• Mom's Music - 25 Thumbs Up

So tracks that get added to this playlist will come from both of these stations (along with any others you collect in the future).

Your My Thumbs Up playlist should have initially added your 1,000 most recent Thumbs, so this would explain why it appears some of the older tracks you have given a Thumbs Up to are missing.

This being said, I am showing your playlist currently only has 993 songs (rather than the 1,000 it should have initially started with). To clarify, have you manually deleted some tracks from it in the past? 

Let me know.

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Eric's Music Thumbs Up playlist:

After you have thumbed up enough songs on any given station you've created, we'll automatically generate a "Thumbs Up" playlist for that station. In other words, we'll collect your thumbs up from that station into a unique playlist, so you can access all of your favorite tracks whenever you want.

Eric's Thumbs Up playlist is a playlist that was automatically generated after enough Thumbs Up were given on it.

This playlist is separate from your My Thumbs Up playlist, as it will only add songs that are given a Thumbs Up to on your Eric's Music station, whereas your My Thumbs Up playlist will add songs that are given a Thumbs Up to across all of your collected stations.

Hope this helps!

[Abrom]

Thank you for the in-depth response, it helps a lot.

"This being said, I am showing your playlist currently only has 993 songs (rather than the 1,000 it should have initially started with). To clarify, have you manually deleted some tracks from it in the past?"

I have no memory of it, so if I did manually delete any songs from the playlist, it would have been years ago in a state of confusion.

Now, when it comes to cleaning up my variety/seeds, do my Thumbs Up tracks count as seeds? I'm wondering since I have so many Thumbs Ups, if I were to delete all songs and bands in my Variety, would I then only get songs related to my Thumbs Up tracks? If so, I think I might try that. Look forward to the response, thank you 🙂

[AdamPandora]

@Abrom Always happy to help answer any questions you have.

Yes - we use all of the feedback you've given on the station (all the Thumbs and any additional seeds) to determine what to play next. If you want to hear more songs by a particular artist, review the Thumbs and seeds you have added. To improve your stations, make sure each of the Thumbs Up or seeds you've added fit with the type of station you want and remove those that don't.

To edit your station on the web, go to My Collection, sort your collection by Stations, and then select the name of the station you'd like to edit.

Then:

1. You can remove a station seed from your station by scrolling down to the Station Created From section. You can delete a particular seed by tapping the ellipsis (or three dots), or by hovering over it and selecting Delete.
2. To delete a thumbed track, scroll down to the Thumb History section of this page. By default, this section will show your Thumbed Up tracks first. If you'd like to see your Thumbs Down, click on the Thumbs Down icon. Next, either select the ellipsis next to the Thumb or hover your cursor over the name of the track to reveal a hidden menu. As before, select Delete.

Now you should hear more of that particular artist in the station, though we do limit the number of songs by a particular artist played each hour due to licensing agreements.

As for the Thumbs or seeds you removed, keep in mind that you can always create new stations based on those songs or artists.

Hope this helps. Thanks so much for listening!

[378018]

Playing 2 Abba songs, I didn't want plus not playing the ones I added.

I added ABBA hits from 1974 through 1981, yet I only hear Lay your Love On Me and Super Trouper which I didn't want. I don't hear the ones I added.