How do stations work?
You can access stations designed to introduce you to new music through the artists and songs that you know and love. You can type in your favorite artist or song and Pandora will do the rest. Music that is similar to your musical tastes will play in your station.
When listening to stations, you are able to rate music by giving it a Thumbs Up (meaning you like it and want more music like that on your station) or Thumbs Down (meaning you don't like it, or don't want music like that on this particular station). When you give a song a Thumbs Down, that song will never play again on that station.
How to create your perfect station ✨
Making improvements to your existing stations:
We want all our listeners to get the most from their Pandora experience as they discover and enjoy music they love. In that spirit, here are a few things we've come up with to get your stations playing great songs, so you can skip less and enjoy more.
- Make a fresh station: Sometimes the best thing to do is to simply start over with a fresh station based on a different starting point, such as a related artist or one of your favorite Thumbed Up songs. Note that you can always bring a station back (with all your Seeds and Thumbs intact) by re-adding it.
You can also use Browse or For You to view station and playlist suggestions picked just for you.
- Thumb freely: Thumb ratings tell us everything about the kinds of music you want to hear. If you have a reaction to a song, let us know! This will give us a better idea of what to play next. Keep in mind, thumbing down a track counts as a skip.
- Listen using Pandora Modes: 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.
- Review your station: When stations are playing songs wildly out of place, or songs that aren't fitting within that station's sound, you should check your station definition and edit any Thumb ratings or seeds that may be adversely affecting the playlist.
- Switch it up: Don't be afraid to make changes. If your station is repetitive, first try our Add Variety feature. If you get sick of a track but don't want to completely ban it, you can also put it on the shelf for a while by choosing "I'm tired of this track." In some cases, it might actually help to remove Thumbs Up ratings in the station definition to mix things up.
- For a more stylistically focused playlist, try creating stations with songs instead of artists. Using song seeds can provide a more focused playlist, by diverging from the mainstream and focusing on a distinct set of musical attributes.
Hope this keeps your stations playing music you love. 🎶
...Still having trouble?
Here are some frequently asked questions regarding stations:
Station repetition:
It's true there can be a certain amount of repetition in some stations. Each listener has different tastes when it comes to hearing the familiar versus discovering new songs. Finding the right balance for each individual is something we continue to work on.
In the meantime, here are some things you can do to improve your stations:
- Listen using Pandora Modes when listening from a computer or mobile device, you can access Pandora Modes to customize your station experience. You can pick different modes like Crowd Faves, Discovery and Deep Cuts.
- Put tracks on the shelf: If you get sick of a track but don't want to give it a Thumbs Down, you can put it on the shelf for a while. To do this from the web, hover your mouse over the album art and select "I'm tired of this track." Pandora Premium listeners should click the ellipsis (3 dots) next the album art to see that option.
- Edit your station: In some cases, it might actually help to remove Thumbs Up ratings in the station to mix things up.
- Add Variety: To add more variety to your artist or song based stations, you can select additional artist and/or song seeds. You can Add Variety when editing stations.
Running through these steps should increase the variety of the station pretty quickly during your listening sessions.
Repetition with Genre stations:
Genre stations, such as "Today's Hits" or "Showtunes Radio," are stations created and curated by Pandora, and they often include more mainstream artists and songs.
As an alternative, we recommend creating your own station, using an artist or song that you think best represents a particular genre. Then use Thumbs to help guide the station you are trying to create.
Additionally, you may Add Variety to the station you create, in order to include other artists or songs you'd like to influence your station.
Keep in mind, each seed you add will inspire hundreds of other songs, so a little variety goes a long way. If you don't like the direction your station is headed, you can always edit your station seeds and Thumbs through the Station Details.
That said, when you're listening from a computer or mobile device you can access Pandora Modes to customize your station experience. You can pick different modes like Crowd Faves, Discovery and Deep Cuts. Let me know if you'd like more information about that.
Not hearing the artist or song your station was created for:
We understand that it's frustrating not to hear the song or artist that you've seeded a station with, but there's no way to control when or how often particular songs or artists 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. You can find out more about free sessions of Premium here.
*May be limited by certain licensing restrictions.
Hope this helps everyone!
