The most unfitting songs you've heard on certain stations

Pandora. Most people use it nowadays for music listening purposes, and it's pretty much the most popular internet radio there is, grouping music together thematically and analytically using its patented (I assume it's patented) algorithm to do so.

However, sometimes its algorithm makes some rather unusual, unfitting choices. For example, I was listening to the surf rock station earlier and two of the songs that came on were "Please Mister Postman" by the Marvelettes (a Motown R&B song) and "Leader of the Pack" (a Lieber/Stoller pop song), both pretty far from being surf rock, all things considered.

Any strange choices in Pandora radio stations that you could think of in your experience?

edited 13th Oct '12 6:15:28 PM by 0dd1

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I said that I liked R&B, and it started playing songs from the Phineas And Ferb soundtrack. To this day it makes no sense.

"Aint no rest for the wicked" plays a lot on my electronica station. Keep in mind that that station has no added artists so everything is set my pandora and yet that managed to play.

Wasn't "Leader of the Pack" done by the same people who did "Walkin' in the Sand"? If so, then it's not too far out by any means. Also, the production style is very close to that employed in early surf rock.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Well, it was co-written by the writer of "{Remember} Walking in the Sand" (Shadow Morton) and sung by the same group (The Shangri-Las).

edited 15th Oct '12 11:59:16 AM by 0dd1

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When I started listening to Pandora I only had stations for instrumental composers (classical, neoclassical, new-age, etc.). I didn't know the artist names for anything else and I used to hate singing.

I remember Enya would play on my new-age stations (she sings, oh the novelty), and I decided I liked her enough make a station. Then a symphonic metal band called Leaves' Eyes would play on the Enya station. And then other metal bands I decided I liked would play on my Leaves' Eyes station. Eventually my metal stations crowded out my instrumental stations.

I suppose that none of those bands are especially unfitting, but I think it's funny that I got from classical to metal.

I once got Johnny Cash on my Rolling Stones radio.

That one kind of makes sense, since they're both artists who are often classified in the "rock" genre (especially classic rock and '60s rock) who are seen as edgy or subversive.

edited 18th Nov '12 9:55:48 PM by 0dd1

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Not Pandora, but I used to listen to an Internet radio station that was mainly country music. Somehow, "The Adventure" by Angels & Airwaves wound up on their playlist.

Maybe I should ask for a title change to just radio stations (internet or otherwise) in general, since that'd probably work best for the sake of discussion.

Angels & Airwaves...from what little I've heard of them, they're not even remotely country.

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I think I asked them about that once. They said it was an accident and they would fix it. Same station also had one song that would always fade out about 20 seconds in, but I think they fixed that.

Just thought of another radio one. A local country station here played "I'll Be There" by the Jackson 5 the week Michael Jackson died. A COUNTRY station played The Jackson 5.

If we extend this to music video stations, GAC (Great American Country) has gone off the board a lot. I know they aired "Rolling in the Deep" by Adele and "This Afternoon" by Nickelback. In fact, that was the first place I ever heard the former, since the local pop station apparently has a total aversion to Adele.

edited 18th Nov '12 10:44:17 PM by Twentington

Uh, this is going on the "other than pandora" line of discussion, but...

MFW I'm listening to a dance station on Grooveshark and I get Justin Bieber.

I got Eminem's "Stan" on my James Taylor station one time. It still cracks me up to this day that, of all the rap songs in the world that could be likened to JT, "Stan" was the one that Pandora thought might match up.

I once heard a song from The Corrs on my Dragon Force station.

Can we include Last.fm?

Cause once I was listening to the black metal station and all of a sudden I'm hit with this shit

That's hilarious... And it had to have resulted from a small group of people abusing genre tags for trolling purposes.

Almost definitely. I think my favorite last.fm troll tag is "Better than Radiohead," because the top artist for that tag is Everything.

I just hollered for a request to just change the thread title to the more general "The most unfitting songs you've heard on certain radio stations", rather than just limiting it to Pandora.

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My symphonic/neoclassical metal station gave me Christmas music. I mean straight-up Christmas music. With bells and everything.

Goddammit, Pandora, that is not what I meant when I gave Trans Siberian Orchestra a thumbs up.

Well, 'The Day The 'Conducator' Died (An Xmas Song)' might work, given a certain kind of logic.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

I was listening to a Live365 station that played 80s hard rock music almost exclusively, but then they threw a curveball and played Good Ol Boys (The Dukes of Hazzard theme) by Waylon Jennings.

A friend of mine was listening to his Kid Cudi station on Pandora, and guess what song shows up? "Baby It's Cold Outside" by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting.

As for me, the Brutal Death Metal station on Last FM is a disaster. Not only do I get Rickrolled every hour or so, but the likes of Barney, Paris Hilton, My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, and even Justin Bieber invade the station.

edited 8th Mar '13 9:47:13 AM by Pokemon39

The first non-Fugazi artist the Fugazi station on Spotify played for me was... Ween. I found this funny because 1) it was "The Mollusk", which is sort of one of their prog rock pastiches, and as far from Post-Hardcore as you can get *

, and 2) Ween are known for making very druggy music, whereas Ian MacKaye's other famous band are well-known for (unintentionally) starting the straight edge punk movement.

edited 17th Mar '13 1:09:42 PM by MikeK

Third Eye Blind on Pandora's 80's Hair Band Metal. I suppose I could see some twisted way to justify it, but I expect my stations to play songs from the decade the station is built for.

Johnny Cash showed up on my Punk Rock station on Pandora. It was surprisingly less out of place than you'd think, but hearing someone who actually sang in key was a noticeable change of pace. At least I can kind of understand this because Johnny Cash's "rebellious" image was an influence on a lot of punk musicians.

One that still confuses me is Steely Dan showing up on my trip hop station.