"Some music lovers dislike Pandora’s approach to choosing music based on its characteristics rather than cultural associations. Slacker Radio, a competitor with three times as many songs but less than a third of Pandora’s listeners, takes a different approach. A ’90s alternative station should be informed by Seattle grunge, said Jonathan Sasse, senior vice president for marketing at Slacker. “It’s not just that this has an 80-beat-a-minute guitar riff,” he said. “It’s that this band toured with Eddie Vedder.”"

I always thought Pandora did this, but never admitted to it. Their stated reasons for what music they play don't really add up--when I have a certain band defined as the seed for my station, it invariably plays songs from the various solo albums, side projects, and former members of that band.