...My Pandora and I remain madly in love.
Yes, it’s true that the algorithms are sticky and set in their ways. You canNOT teach it anything, you just can’t.
Can you teach it the concept of Yacht Rock? You cannot. And I’ve tried. For YEARS. Nope, that station still plays Hall & Oates.
But '80s Jersey Roller Rink? Yes!
Oh, those were the days….Kurt Zudema where are you!?! I’m probably spelling his name wrong. How can someone not be on Facebook in 2011?
We all lived at the rink, which was walking distance from our neighborhood. Those three years in Oakland, New Jersey I only took my roller skates off to put my ice skates on (when Crystal Lake froze over).
Nasty pizza, sad third grade crushes and Blondie. Before anybody owned a helmet.
The DJ at the rink must not have been into stuff like Joy Division, The Smiths or the Cure…so I never even heard that stuff until I was older. It was all J. Geils and Billy Squier.
I believe we jumped the turnstile into the rink more than once…at least I don’t remember ever having money to pay. Sometimes I begged from boys in line. (Gotsta do whatcha gotsta do to get your skate on.)
This was also the time of shop lifting pages of scratch n’ sniff and other coveted glitter stickers from the drug store for our sticker binders. No. I couldn’t afford a trapper keeper. What am I? Rich? Sticker collection was a rich-kids pastime, anyway. I eventually gave up my life of crime and admitted defeat.
I made this station to skate to in my basement while I train for roller derby (I found a local team!)
Give it a listen if you want (it probably won’t hold up off of skates).
Just remember there’s hope in designing a nostalgia-based station yet.
