Spotify's Pandora competitor is now live in the US.
Dubbed Stations, the standalone app was previously only available in Australia, but can now be downloaded on iOS and Android in the US. Spotify Premium subscribers can listen without ads; non-subscribers will have to endure them.
The app's bare-bones design serves the indecisive listener by circumventing selection paralysis and leaving (almost) everything up to an algorithm.
Stations plays music immediately when you open the app and presents you with a scrollable list of curated playlists. A minimal control suite sits at the bottom of the screen and an Add Station button at the top allows you to create new playlists based on an artist or genre.
As with Pandora, when Stations plays a song you enjoy, you can press the Like button, and it'll add similar songs to your rotation. Dislike a song, and the app does the opposite. After you've positively rated 15 songs, a favorites playlist unlocks that pulls directly from your liked material.
This simplicity comes with limitations. You can't filter out explicit content or fiddle with music quality. Nor can you create stations based on specific songs or albums.
But you still have a few curation options. Within single-artist stations, you can toggle whether you want similar, Spotify-selected musicians added to your playlist. You can also add artists manually in the same menu.