Sure, iTunes is sweet. It enables music lovers to go from The Beatles to Bulgarian folk rock in the click of a mouse. But for my ears iTunes can’t compete with Pandora, which allows users to build a custom playlist based on the characterists of a single tune. At the risk of aging myself, this afternoon I launched my own Pandora “station” by inserting ‘Jerry Garcia Band.’ Garcia’s rousing cover of Motown’s ‘How Sweet it is’ sequed into Bob Dylan’s bittersweet ‘Sweetheart Like You,’ from the seminal Infidels album. The Web site, which caters to all music tastes, has a catalog of 500,000 songs. But Pandora is under pressure from paying royalty rates. A new deal with Clear Channel could be a solution.
