One of the first things I did when I met my college roommate was scrutinize her CD collection. For the most part, I approved of it. It was full of bands I knew I liked — Green Day, the Afghan Whigs, the Violent Femmes — as well as bands I didn’t know anything about, but was eager to hear. Throughout my freshman year, I borrowed CDs from my roommate and the other people who lived on my floor in East Hall, and developed an appreciation for bands such as Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and Jawbreaker. I discovered Wilco and Son Volt through my friend Geoff, and first heard the Dave Matthews Band while hanging out in the dorm room down the hall.

I don’t have any desire to live in a dormitory again, but there is one thing I miss about East Hall: the easy access to dozens of CD collections. I acquired a ton of new music during this phase; in my adult life, there’s been nothing comparable, in terms of music accumulation. Some of my friends don’t even display their CDs in a position of household prominence, preferring to keep them tucked away behind cabinet doors. This bewilders me, but I try to remind myself that grown-ups just aren’t quite as obsessive about their music as college students, and that you shouldn’t judge a person by their CD collection, anyway. Right?

Even so, I’m always interested in hearing cool and interesting music, and during my vacation I discovered the best resource for finding cool music since East Hall. This discovery was facilitated by that same college roommate. She told me about Pandora, a free, personalized Internet radio service. Basically, anyone can go onto the Pandora website, which you can find here, register and give Pandora a list of favorite bands and songs. Based on this list, Pandora will play songs that it thinks you’ll will like.

A friend predicted I would become obsessed with Pandora, and he was right. When I opened my account, I started by listing some favorite bands and musicians — the Replacements, DeVotchKa, Modest Mouse, Bjork, the White Stripes, etc. These choices led to songs by bands I like, such as Nirvana and the Clash, as well as songs by obscure Icelandic pop bands I’d never heard of, and songs by bands I’ve always wanted to hear, such as Stiff Little Fingers, Television, and the Jam. I added Prince to the mix, which was a brilliant move, because it meant I got to hear songs by Duran Duran and Michael Jackson and Marvin Gaye. And I was delighted to find that including the punk band Jawbreaker got Pandora to play the great song “Freak Scene,” by Dinosaur Jr., which I’ve never heard on the radio in my life, maybe because it contains an unprintable word.

There have been a few missteps, and I’m still trying to perfect the mix. For instance, I decided to remove Pearl Jam and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Much as I love them, I realized that I don’t have much of a desire to listen to second-tier grunge acts or warmed over ska-punk from the late 1990s. I added Bruce Springsteen, thinking it might be fun to hear some quality classic rock now and again, but I’m still on the fence about whether this was a good decision, because Springsteen’s inclusion has led to things I like, such as lesser-know Who songs, but also things I don’t like, like Rod Stewart. I threw jazz violinist Billy Bang into the mix in the hopes of hearing cool avant-garde jazz, and so far I’m happy with that decision. Then I added De La Soul because I like old-school hip-hop; so far, I’ve heard Gang Starr and A Tribe Called Quest. Now I’m thinking that maybe I should add another female vocalist, so that I can hear people like Aimee Mann and Tori Amos and Liz Phair.

Pandora is part of something called the Music Genome Project. The website explains what this is, and here’s an excerpt:

“On January 6, 2000 a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever.

“Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or “genes” into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song — everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It’s not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records — it’s about what each individual song sounds like.”

Sounds good to me. So far, Pandora’s been like a cool new friend whose sole purpose is catering to my musical needs and interests. Who doesn’t want a friend like that?