Music streaming platform Pandora has always been a popular destination for music fans who just want to hear some tunes with a minimum of fuss. Its users are less fussy that than of Spotify, Tidal or Apple Music, preferring to let Pandora shuffle up the tunes on its own. Having said all of that, users who like Pandora’s stripped back UX but crave deeper options for choosing their tunes are about to get their wish.
Pandora updated their blog overnight to announce Pandora Premium, a new subscription service that will allow users to search and play any track or album, as well a host of new additions to playlists that make it easier to tailor them to your taste.
Upgrading to Premium won’t change anything you’ve already created — you’ll find everything in your My Music screen, right where you left it. You’ll also find a My Thumbs Up playlist that drops every song you’ve ever Thumbed into one playlist.
Building a playlist has also been streamlined, allowing you to pick a few songs and then hit “Add Similar Songs” to fill out the rest. This is one example of Pandora still knowing their audience — “being choosy will slow you down, point us in the right direction and we can do the rest.”
Thumbing your favourite songs will not only add them to your My Thumbs Up playlist, but if you Thumb enough songs from one single playlist then Pandora will automatically start compiling a new playlist made up of those songs so you can come back to them with ease. The more you Thumb, the more it will add.
Searches have been revised for Premium and will now learn about what you like based on what you look for. It has also been revised to weed out the chuffa — karaoke tracks, terrible covers and the like have all been dropped leaving your results free of aural debris. If you find yourself listening to one or two genres in particular, Pandora will try to pull from those genres first when searching for you.
Pandora Premium is currently set at US$9.99 per month. You can read more about it on the official Pandora blog.
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