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?