Category: Music

Rhapsody v. Zune v. Lala

I recently discovered Lala from reading Ed Bott’s “6 Music Services Compared:  Who Can Beat the iTunes Monopoly?”  Lala is the slickest way to listen to music on the web yet.  And since it’s free, anyone who loves music would be crazy not to try it out.  Joining Lala gets you 50 free web songs.  Lala offer four ways to listen to music.   First, the free one time only listen.  Second, the ten cents per song to listen via the web for as many plays as you want.   Third, Lala lets you buy a MP3 version of the song, at prices a bit cheaper than other sites, and finally, they help you play songs you already own through the web.

I’m already a subscriber to Rhapsody and Zune and I’ve bought music from iTunes and Amazon.  Digital music continues to blossom while traditional music sales continue to tank.  I never liked buying music from iTunes because I was locked in to its DRM.  In fact I’ve bought so few albums from iTunes that when it came time to upgrade my computer I didn’t bother moving them, it was just more trouble than I wanted to mess with, but I have access to those albums on Rhapsody and Zune.  And although I like Amazon and its unlocked songs, buying songs one at a time and trying to keep up with them is a pain.  I much rather have an unlimited subscription music.

Subscription music is the least amount of hassle.  From thinking of a song to playing it, takes the least amount of time.

I do have 18,000 ripped songs from my CD collection, but even it’s a pain to deal with.  For instance I’m thinking about putting Linux on my second machine but that’s where I keep my music library backup.  Worrying about a 192gb music collection is a real ball and chain.  Also, 18,000 songs is just too limited.  This past couple weeks I’ve been playing all the versions of “All Along the Watchtower” that I can find.  My collection has 5 versions.  Rhapsody has 153 versions, and Lala claims to have over 300, although both Lala and Rhapsody list a lot of repeats.  But I have heard maybe 60+ distinct versions so far.  Damn, I love that song.

Playing musical games like this just isn’t practical with iTunes or Amazon, unless I wanted to buy the songs, say $60.  Lala is free to listen to any song for free once, or 10 cents for unlimited web streaming, and Rhapsody provides all I can listen for $10 a month (I pay by the year, it’s $13 a month if you pay by the month).  Zune is $15 a month.  Spending $28 a month for two subscription services is wasteful because of the overlap, but I used to spend at least that much a week before digital music.

Lala is great to share with friends.  It’s easy to sign up and use, and it’s free to use for playing any song or album once.  I’ve never gotten my friends to join Rhapsody so we can share playlists, and I don’t know any Zune users either.  So Lala is great for sharing.  Lala might even be good for all my listening.  $10 a month means 100 web songs.  On Rhapsody and Zune I never find 100 songs a month I want to replay, so if I wanted to live on $10 a month or less for my music budget, Lala would be the way to go.

Zune is great for throwing albums onto the player and carrying them around.  The trouble is I don’t like playing music on the go, so I will probably cancel my Zune membership in the future.  If you do love playing music on a digital player, Zune is the easiest and cheapest way to go.  Dragging and dropping albums onto the player can’t be simpler.

I’m going to play with Zune for awhile longer.  Like Lala and Rhapsody, it allows me to play music anywhere I have a computer and network access, but so far it’s web interface is my least favorite for playing music online.  Rhapsody and Lala are much faster at queuing up a list of songs to play.  And Rhapsody beats Lala in that I can queue up songs to play on my big stereo through my SoundBridge, although I play 95% of my music while working at the computer at home and work.  But if I do sit down and listen to music on the big stereo, Rhapsody wins against the others, but not against CDs.

I don’t buy many CDs, only ones where I think I want to own them for life and love playing them on the big stereo.  And now that I’ve discovered that Tower.com is a dirt cheap way to get CDs, I’m buying CDs again.  $6.99 and $7.99 CDs are not uncommon, and at those prices I’m much rather buy the physical CD than the download.

If CD prices are low enough to beat the prices of digital music, digital subscription music then becomes the way to discover great music, and you buy the best of the best on CD to keep.  I’m partial to Rhapsody, but if I was uncommitted, I’d go with Lala for discovering music and web playing.  If you have a SoundBridge or Sonos system, or one of the other digital media hubs, you’ll probably want Rhapsody, but that might change.  I bet Lala comes to Sonos soon.

Like I said, you’d be foolish to ignore Lala if you love music.  And if you like to share songs with friends, Lala is great.  I hope Lala succeeds.  It has fantastic potential as a social network.  Lala doesn’t have as many songs as Rhapsody but it’s growing.  If there was a Lala iPhone/touch app, it would be killer.

Give Lala a try, go listen to a dozen versions of “All Along the Watchtower.”

Here is a test to see if I can share Lala.com songs via WordPress. Let me know if you could play the song okay. Lala actually provides Flash code to embed a cute little player, but WordPress strips out that code.

Jefferson Goncalves plays solo harmonica in this version of “All Along The Watchtower.”

JWH – 5/2/9

A Zune Christmas

My wife got me a blue 8gb Zune for Christmas and I’ve been spending this morning downloading albums to play on it.  I bought the Zune Pass which lets me have access to almost everything for $14.99 a month.  I’m used to subscription music because I’ve been a Rhapsody subscriber for years, but I never had a compatible player.  iPods don’t work with subscription music services.  I was intrigued by Zune when I read the new 3.0 version allowed subscribers to keep 10 songs a month as part of their monthly fee.  The ten free songs a month aren’t DRM-free MP3 songs though, but Zune locked songs, although they promise these songs will play even after I stop paying the rent.  Well, we know how that works, don’t we.  Still it’s a nice try.

So far I’ve downloaded:

  • Quicksilver Messenger Service
  • Quicksilver Messenger Service – Happy Trails
  • Pavement – Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Ed.
  • R.E.M. – Murmur – Deluxe
  • Genesis – Foxtrot (new reissue)
  • Joan Baez – Day After Tomorrow
  • David Bowie – Live in Santa Monica 1972
  • Arcade Fire – Funeral
  • Nirvana – Nevermind
  • The Priests

I considered getting the new box set of the complete Creedence Clearwater Revival albums, but figured I’d save that for later.  I wish they had a check box for “Add to Memory Queue” for these subscription services.  All-you-can-listen-to musical gluttony is hard to manage.

I’ve found a great way to pick new albums to load – I go to The Rolling Stone CD Album Review page and look for 4 and 5 star reviews.  This is a fantastic way to discover new albums, and to rediscover old albums and box sets when they are re-released.

Even if I only listened to one new album a day, $300 a month value at $10 an album, the $15 a month fee still makes me feel like I’m robbing them blind.  Nothing is stopping me from listening to 10 new albums a day.  It’s all legal and on the up-and-up.  And I think it’s a fair price.  For most albums, I will only listen to them once.  I doubt that I will find 10 perfect songs a month that I will want to play over and over again enough to make them worth the trouble to isolate from the rental songs.  As long as I pay the monthly rental fee I’ll have access to them as long as they don’t go out of print.

I think a fun project would be to find 1,000 perfect songs.  A perfect song to me are ones I would listen to over and over again without getting bored.  It would be fun to have 1,000 perfect songs on the Zune and hit random play.

The Zune works with Wi-Fi and I can call up albums directly from the player, but I find it easier to just load them from my Zune library on the PC.  I haven’t figured out how to delete albums yet.  And there are rare delays in playing music through Wi-Fi that I avoid by downloading the album through the computer.  The Wi-Fi feature will be great for when I’m away from home.

The Zune now supports Audible.com files and Overdrive library files, so I can use the Zune as a replacement for my iPod Nano that I use for listening to audio books.  The players are about the same size and weight.  I haven’t checked how well the Zune plays audio books, and whether or not it has a good resume feature, vital for listening to audio books.  Overall, I’m very impressed with the Zune.

The earphones that come with the Zune seem nice enough, but I’ve read they aren’t as good as they could be, so I’ll start looking for reviews on some low-cost great bang-for-buck earphones.  I find the Zune earphones better than the ones that came with my iPod.  They are more comfortable and sound better.  I’ve never acquired the habit of listening to music through earphones though, and that will determine how how I use my Zune, but I like it very much right now.

JWH 12/26/8

Out of Print – The Bad Side of Digital

There is a downside to digital music, especially if you’ve moved completely to digital downloads and have given up on CDs and LPs and want to be completely legal.  Most albums only stay in print for a certain period of time.  Famous records from artists like The Beatles, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones tend to stay in print forever, but not so for the work of most performers.  If you love a less famous band, say Quicksilver Messenger Service, most of their albums are out of print.

I would love to hear three QMS albums again, Shady Grove, Just For Love and What About Me on my Zune or iPod.  They aren’t available from Zune Marketplace.  Nor can I buy them from Amazon on MP3.  Nor are they for sale at iTunes.  I can get them from Amazon as Japanese import CDs for $15 each.  Or  I could track down the original LPs on eBay for less and then convert the tracks to digital.  Just when I thought I had left the physical world of LPs and CDs, I’m dragged back in.

What this means:  If you REALLY love an album buy a physical copy.  Rip it, make backups, and store away the original for safe keeping.  You never know thirty years from now when the nostalgic mood hits you and you’ll moan pitifully, “I’d give a hundred bucks to hear that album again.”  Otherwise, Zen up, accept the fleeting quality of this world, and stop trying to clutch desperately to the past.

You’d think with digital record stores everything that was ever recorded would be for sale, but for legal reasons that’s not true.  Like I said, if you’re criminally minded, just steal what you want off the net.  iTunes, Rhapsody and Zune Marketplace should have everything because production costs shouldn’t be an issue.  If the pirates can offer everything from free, why should the legal dudes have any trouble providing it for money?

I could wait and maybe Shady Grove, Just for Love and What About Me will be legally reprinted in the Zune Marketplace and Rhapsody libraries.  But what if the contract is only for five years, and I want to hear those albums again when I’m 88?  That’s the problem with subscription music – it’s ephemeral.

Why even have a publication period for an album in this digital age?  Why can’t artists just sign up with publishers and have their work always in print and constantly available?  That might happen in the future, but I can’t trust it now.

Nothing is for sure.  I could buy those three Japanese imports and twenty-five years from now CD players could be as rare as turntables that play 78 rpm records.  There might be technological reasons that put music out of print too.  Owning a MP3 file, free of digital rights management, might have a longer useful life span than a physical album, but only if you backup like a compulsive fiend.

But this is also sadly funny.  I just got a new Zune, I have access to hundreds of thousands of albums I’ve never heard, more than can fit in any record store I’ve ever visited and I’m crying over three albums that probably, if I had them, I’d only play once because there’s a reason they are out of print.  Why don’t I make an effort to discover new albums to love rather than whining about old forgotten albums?

Over the years I’ve owned thousands of albums, many of which I can’t even remember, but every once in awhile will pop back into my mind and I’ll wish I had them to play again.  I guess that’s human nature.

JWH – 12/25/8

My Poor Man’s Sonos

Sonos is considered the Mercedes of the music media servers, but I have had to make do with my Toyota-like SoundBridge.  What makes the Sonos system so deluxe is it’s $400 hand controller, which has a LCD screen to aid in locating songs.  The Roku Soundbridge has a tiny handheld remote which controls the SoundBridge device that has a 280×16 pixel LED display for selecting songs.  For this to work I need to stand in front of the SoundBridge because the remote may work across the room but I can only see the LED display if I’m right in front of it.

In my La-Z-boy laziness, I wanted to kick back in my recliner and play  songs with fat-butt staying-in-chair ease, which the Sonos controller was designed for I’m sure.  Now I’ve discovered RokuRemote, a iPhone/iPod touch app.  My iPod touch is now my Sonos-like controller to my SoundBridge, bringing me to near nerdvana.

I say near, because complete bliss would only be achieved by voice command to a house controlled computer.  I would say telepathy song control was the absolute ultimate, but I have to be realistic sometimes.  Voice control is possible, but it would be far more expensive than even buying into a Sonos system, and so I make do with my $2.99 RokuRemote app.

For those people who only listen to music via white ear-buds, you will never understand the nature of my problem.  I have a computer in my man-room with 18,000 mp3 songs on it.  I have a stereo receiver with floor standing Infinity speakers in my den.  My computer also has access to Rhapsody music, with a library of millions of songs.  Any album I own, or one that I tell Rhapsody to save in my library, can be played on my den stereo system through the SoundBridge.

The X-Prize problem is to sit in my den chair and tell my computer what to play on the stereo with the least amount of hassle.  Now you can understand why I wish I could just say, “Computer, play ‘Cowgirl in the Sand’ off of Everybody Knows This is Nowhere.”  Since that isn’t possible, I launch RokuRemote on my iPod touch, and pick my SoundBridge, and then say I want to search by albums, and type in “Everybody” and hit search, and then punch on the title of the album, and the poke the song and it plays.  Pretty damn easy.

When you connect to the SoundBridge you have the choice of searching by artist, album, song or playlist.  Since my collection is large, there a good size pause before seeing whichever listing I choose.  This is probably due to the limitations of the SoundBridge, and not the RokuRemote program.  If the SoundBridge had some memory and extra CPU processing power, it could maintain the information about my music collection and periodically talk to the computer for updates.

In the old days you have to find the LP, decide which side to play, and then place the stylus on the particular track you wanted to hear.  CDs were a big step forward.  Only one side, and you used a remote to select the cut number.  We are living in the 21st century now when all the music is in a database and it’s only a matter of retrieving it.  The song access time has gotten very short, but wouldn’t it be living a dream to be able to say a song’s name and album and hear it instantly?

If you own a SoundBridge and an iPhone or iPod touch, just go to the AppStore on your device and search on Roku.  It’s $2.99 well spent.  If you don’t own a SoundBridge but want a media server, Sonos now works with a free iPhone/touch app, so all you have to buy is the $349 Zone player.

JWH 12/2/8

Where’s The Jazz

My friend Lee pointed out that Rhapsody.com is weak on jazz, so I decided to test it.  I went to Jazz Review and checked the 11 albums that are marked “New” on the Jazz CD Review Database.  Rhapsody only had 5 of the 11.  However, 3 of the 6 that weren’t on Rhapsody were missing from Amazon.com as well.  How obscure are some jazz CDs?

Albums on Rhapsody

  • Future Day by David Finck
  • Night Town by The Hot Club of Detroit
  • I Had the Craziest Dream by David Berger Octet
  • Bluelisted by JW Jones
  • Do5 by Mahogany Frog

Albums not on Rhapsody

  • Dry Bridge Road by Noah Preminger Group
  • Explorations by David Leonhardt Trio
  • Renewal by various
  • Vicky Christina Barcelona soundtrack
  • Home by Kelley Johnson
  • Incandescence by Bill Stewart

Over at JazzTimes.com I found five reviews listed online from their September issue and Rhapsody had 3 of the 5.

  • Here and Gone by David Sanborn (Rhapsody)
  • Encuentro by Afro-Cuban Jazz Project
  • Stompin’ the Blues by Harry Allen-Joe Cohn Quartet (Rhapsody)
  • I Am I Am by JD Allen Trio (Rhapsody)
  • Tenor Talk by Jerry Bergonzi

That’s 8 out of 16, or .500 batting average for Jazz using this simple test.  Not bad, but not anywhere like the Rhapsody’s success with pop music. 

Lee also asked about world music.  I went to RootsWorld.com and checked their first 10 album reviews, and Rhapsody had 7 out of 10.

Albums on Rhapsody

  • Lonquén by Francesca Ancarola
  • Duo by Bibaia
  • Here to Stay by BR6
  • 3 Nights by Zulya and the Children of the Underground
  • Teknochek Collision by Slavic Soul Party!
  • Alevanta! by Benjamin Escoriza
  • Klezmer at the Cotton Club by Helmut Eisel and Band

Albums not on Rhapsody

  • Essai by Bastien Lucas
  • English Country Garden by Jenny McCormick
  • Orm by Sågskära

This really shows how little I know about jazz and world music.  I had only heard of David Sanborn before.  If also shows I’m not making full use of Rhapsody.com.  I could create quite a musical education regimen if I just made myself try one new album a day from diverse musical sources.

I wonder if there are any bloggers out there who are subscribers to Rhapsody that try to review as many albums as they can.  If I was retired, I think I would be tempted to start an “Album of the Day” site.

Jim