I’ve played with Pandora, but with my music library it’s pretty rare to leave the playlist up to somebody else. 99% of what I remember about Pandora is that it had a really hard time accepting that I don’t like the Beatles, no matter what I started a list with the 5th song was always a Beatles song, I kept saying no but it kept pushing them anyway. It did remind me how much I like Joe Jackson though so it wasn’t a total loss. But it’s still not the personal touch. There’s a dramatic difference between the guy you see all the time at the record store saying “you gotta here this” and Pandora sticking it in some playlist you might not even be paying attention to.
Yeah, I don't like the Beatles, either. And it's gotten better. I found that Pandora is a bit better than Slacker with respect to the dislikes. I agree, though, the personal touch isn't there with Pandora.