There’s no lack of love for music at Syracuse University. From the dazed iPod-wearing campus walkers to the ever growing number of student bands and the multiple above and underground shows that are constantly happening, this is a college that clearly loves to rock out. In fact, the only problem with music at SU is not that there’s too little, but too little variety.

Fear not, SU. You no longer have to have your John Mayer CD on repeat to get your daily dose of Top 40 guitar pop-rock. With the help of the Music Genome Project and Pandora.com, all music similar to your favorite artists is at your fingertips. Pandora.com is a simple enough looking Web site. A short introduction explaining this is the place to find music rests above a blue box asking users to put in the name of a favorite artist or song. Yet, once the request is filled, a whole new world of music is opened.

Almost immediately a random song by that artist starts playing. Yet, when it finishes, song after song of a similar format plays. These random songs range from completely obscure to familiar radio hits.

For example, one time typing in The Beatles brings up ‘Twist and Shout,’ but from there it goes into ‘The Girl I Threw Away’ by The Knaves, ‘Stupid Girl’ by The Rolling Stones, ‘Mend This Heart of Mine’ by Afterglow and ‘Heaven Is in Your Mind’ by Traffic.

After a few songs, users are forced to register to use the site, but it’s free and quick. The only real problem behind the site is that you can’t have the songs in any real format beyond playing them on the Web site, so burning a CD or making an MP3 is impossible. Then again, I think we all know an easy way to get a real version of the songs to your computer … going out and buying the album of each band that you like, of course