Are you sick of your iPod playlist? Are you too cheap to buy the songs online or too busy to find new music?

Fifty musical analysts with the Music Genome Project have worked tirelessly since 2000 to create the most comprehensive musical knowledge network on the Web.

The Music Genome Project analyzes songs from artists like Elvis to the local coffee-shop singer with an acoustic guitar. Each song is evaluated on almost 400 criteria, including lyrics, rhythm, vocals, melody, harmony and instrumentation.

Their extensive work is available for browsing on www.pandora.com.

Users begin by searching for an artist or song title. Pandora first shows the user the musical analysis of the song or artist, then automatically compiles a playlist of similar songs, new and old that the user might like as well.

With each new song played, the user is allowed to take control. Musical information and reasons for its choice are all offered. Users also can reject songs and tell Pandora to refrain from playing songs of that particular type.

Since each song has a list of attributes, the user can tailor what types of similarities they want in their playlist.

Users can follow any path they want and will find themselves listening to music they may never have listened to or even given a chance.

Users will be impressed with the depth of artists as not only does it include artists from a century ago, but is constantly updated to include new and upcoming music. Even the small local bands are included in this database.

When a small local Minnesota hip hop group was entered as a search, not only did Pandora return musically similar music, it also provided regionally similar music, playing songs from other Minnesotan groups.

Whether song picks surprise or disappoint, users have lots of freedom to explore different aspects of their favorite artists. This site can be used as background music or a fun site with which to interact.

Either way, users will love its simple layout and easy direction. The site also links users to such resources as iTunes and amazon.com for purchasing music. The possibilities are endless.

Pandora can offer the musically obsessed or musically ignorant a place learn.

However, if Pandora sounds like a good idea to you, you should enjoy it while you still can. Last year, the federal Copyright Royalty Board doubled the per-song performance royalty fee that Web stations pay to artists and record companies. As a result, Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, has said the Web site may have to shut down.