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February 2006
Old dog Napster learns new tricks, wins best in show
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Geekboy’s journey through the sad digital landscape that is pay-for-play music websites draws to an end.
So far, Yahoo’s Music Machine and Apple’s iTunes have proven unworthy of my cash.
If you have an iPod, you are pretty much stuck with iTunes. No other pay-for-play site really supports the iPod because Apple doesn’t want them to. If you have a different portable music device, like the very nice Creative MP3 players, you have better options.
Rhapsody, which is owned by Real Networks, the folks that pioneered streaming media, appears to be OK at first. It looks great, burns CDs and has awesome online radio stations.
But the songs you download are in the Real Audio Protected file format (rax) and will only play in Real Player, the most bloated piece of junk software on my computer.
So forget Rhapsody. You can do better.
Napster is like an old college friend who grew up to be a lawyer. You don’t want to like him, but you can’t help yourself.
Napster, if you recall, was a file-sharing program that first stood the music industry on its ear. It was shut down in 2001 after a flurry of lawsuits not seen since the final Ford Pinto exploded.
Napster was created by a college dropout in 1999 during a 60-hour coding marathon. It was brilliant. Napster allowed computer users to share and swap files, specifically music, through a centralized file server. Current peer-to-peer clients such as Limewire borrow heavily from Napster but do not use a centralized file server, making them almost impossible to shut down through legal means.
Now Napster is a pay-for-play music website, the latest incarnation of Pressplay, the much-maligned site first foisted upon the public by a consortium of record companies.
Napster has a great interface; once you see it, you will forget iTunes exists.
And Napster burns CDs with no problems, has the great online radio stations that you can fast forward through, has artist information by the renowned “All Music Guide” and, best of all, anything you download is in a file format WinAmp can play.
For the $15 monthly fee, you’re allowed unlimited downloads. You can put music on up to three non-iPod portable players and log in and listen on up to three computers.
The problem here, as with all other pay-for-play sites that allow you to download a track without buying it, is that once your quit paying the monthly fee, the download quits working unless you have also purchased it.
If you want to keep the songs or burn them to a CD, you have to buy them, not just download them. A song costs 99 cents at Napster.
I bought Elliott Smith’s “Kill Rock Stars” album for $9.99 and burned it with no problem.
Will I pay $15 a month to keep the music playing at Napster? Probably not.
I think the best choice for most people is pretty simple. If you have an iPod, use iTunes.
It is the only site that supports Apple products. iTunes fails on several fronts, however. If you buy a song, your name and who knows what other personal info is included in the file header. If you like having your rights trampled on, more power to you. Also, I could not get the CD burning software to work at iTunes. Other lows are the 30-second audio clips and pitiful radio stations. You can listen to and download the whole song on other sites and the radio stations are much better. Since you can’t download a whole song at iTunes without buying it, there is no monthly fee, something unique in this roundup.
If you have a non-iPod music device, you have choices to make.
Yahoo is cheapest, $12 a month for unlimited music downloads, burnable tracks are 79 cents. The Launchcast radio station sound quality is not as good as Napster or Rhapsody, and overall the user experience falls a little short. I did not try to burn a CD here, but I am told it is possible. Downloads are “wma” format and can be played in WinAmp or most other players, so that’s a plus.
Rhapsody and Napster offer unlimited music downloads for $15 a month, burnable tracks are 99 cents. Both sites are very well designed and I had no technical problems with them.
Both burned CDs with no problem.
But Rhapsody files are in their proprietary “rax” format, which means you have to use Real Player if you want to listen to downloaded songs later. Their software stinks. I refuse to use it as my main media player.
I liked Napster the best. The “wma” file format can be played in WinAmp and the radio stations are awesome. The interface is the best.
If new music is your life, you will like any of the four. If you have a PC, I suggest Napster and Yahoo. If you have an Apple, or an iPod, go with iTunes.
Personally, I will stick to buying CDs from Amazon.com. I can listen to samples there and order what I want. Used CDs on Amazon or eBay are cheap and a factory CD will always sound better than what is downloaded from the Internet. And call me old fashioned, but I like thumbing through the literature that comes with a CD.
And best of all, once you own the CD, the record companies can’t take it away from you if you decide to quit paying their monthly extortion fees.
iHate iTunes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Geekboy does not exercise, unless typing qualifies as sport, which, if it did, my glistening and sleek shift pinkies would clearly power the U.S. to office Olympic gold medal glory.
As you can tell by the last sentence, I have been watching the Winter Games while drinking and slogging my way through pay-for-play music download sites.
Today’s victim? Apple’s iTunes.
You will notice my vitriol tapers off as your read this column — I blame the Buckwheat Zydeco music I am listening to and the wine, Red Bicyclette, which iSelected only because the label had a cute dog chasing some beret-wearing fellow on a bike stealing bread. Or perhaps that’s his dog? Life is full of mysteries.
One of life’s largest mysteries is the popularity of iTunes.
iTunes is largely retarded, but lets you burn CDs of what you download. That is the good news. The bad news is the CDs don’t work.
iTried burning a CD a second time and iTunes crashed. iThink the iTunes CD burning software is junk.
The problem with iTunes is it is owned by Apple, and they are more worried about being cool than being good. Take the name iTunes for instance. Unbeknownst to most, the “i” in everything Apple tries to offload on a genuflecting public stands for “Internet.”
It’s enough to make you wonder why an Internet Portable Device, aka iPod, can’t access the Internet.
Maybe the “i” can now stand for Intel?
iTunes supports Windows and, of course, Macs. iTested on a PC because Macs are computers for girls.
The download is 35megs. It downloaded quickly, so quickly I had to do it again because the file was corrupt.
As usual, iTunes tried to become the default media player on my system. I avoided this by deselecting the proper boxes during the install process.
After a successful install, iTunes, in classic English as a second language jargon, proudly beamed, “With iTunes installed now it’s a snap to access and download the music you wanted.”
Someone should iFix that.
iTunes looks nice, but only plays 30-second clips of songs, not the whole song like every other service iTried.
There are no Lets Active tunes available. Bummer.
Individual songs are 99 cents each, the most expensive I have seen.
I have to create an account at the iTunes music store, so humbly submit my credit card info. I download the 12-song album “Life’s Rich Pageant” by R.E.M. for $9.99 in less than 3 minutes. That’s about 84 cents per track.
The files appear in an iTunes folder created in the My Documents folder. The files are M4P (not MP4) format, meaning they will not play in WinAmp. M4P is a proprietary Apple format designed to prevent burning of CDs. From what I can gather it is merely a “protected� form of Apple’s ACC sound file format.
What protects it?
iSprang into Geekboy mode, nearly tripping on my cape.
A header is typically text information at the beginning, or head, of a file which tells the computer what to expect when reading the remainder of the file. It can also be used to lie to the computer, and thus prevent a file from being burned to a CD.
If you are up for a little hack, open an M4P file in Notepad and check it out. You will have to tell Notepad to look for “all files” not just text files, and you will have to wait a few minutes while your computer tries to parse the binary data, but eventually you should see something that looks like a screen full of garbage. iSuggest expanding Notepad as big as you can first.
As you will see, the header info contains YOUR NAME and potentially other personal information! Have I mentioned iHate Apple?
I couldn’t burn the songs using Nero, I got the usual DRM, or digital rights media, error.
If you just want to find music and download it, iTunes does the job and allegedly lets you burn CDs for your car. I could never produce a properly functioning CD, but your mileage may vary.
If the CD had worked, and if Apple had not infused my name and who knows what other information into the file headers of my music, I would probably give them a better review. But instead iWill tell you to stay away. This Apple is rotten.
Part 2: Yahoo! owes me a mouse
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last week, we got the pay for play MP3 party started by finding an online service that sells “music downloads.”
This week I detail exactly why Yahoo owes me a mouse.
During the install, which took a long time due to what I surmised were server issues, Yahoo tries to make itself your browser’s default search engine and home page.
And to throw salt on the wounds, Yahoo also tries to become your default media player, which for most users means it supplants Windows Media Player, not something I advise.
YAHOO MUSIC ENGINE 1.1 is installed and I feel like I’ve just finished the terrible first tome of a trilogy, but must keep reading or won’t get paid.
The Yahoo Music Machine interface did not impress me, and I’d never heard of the featured artists, but it’s not like I was expecting Bill Monroe.
At this point it occurs to me that Yahoo marketing must be schizophrenic – thus far I’ve run across Yahoo Music Unlimited (the music club?), Yahoo Music Machine (the interface?), Yahoo Music Engine (the program?), and something called Launchcast, which is apparently Yahoo’s online radio service. I’m going to keep calling this thing Yahoo Music Machine.
There’s a lot going on here. What to do first?
I rated the styles of music I prefer. This allegedly tells Yahoo what sort of music to shove down my throat.
Then I searched for music. I decided to give Yahoo a real test.
I typed Bluebells in the search bar and only got one song. But that was a toughie.
I tried a few other less-than-popular artists:
Nick Drake: 44 songs
Gram Parsons: 20 (someone should be Launchcast into orbit!)
Pretty impressive.
I tried some popular artists for comparison.
Coldplay: 69
U2: 171
The Beatles: 157, but all are karaoke and interviews, not real songs. Few realize it, but karaoke means ‘empty orchestra” in Japanese and “get off the stage you talentless stooge” in English.
Search for the Musical Grail:
For years, Geekboy has been looking for a mythical album, one he wore out in college that was tragically lost in a girlfriend shuffle.
I type in Rain Parade.
Sweet Filo and Yang! 15 songs, including every track from the vaunted “Explosions in the Glass Palace� EP!
As soon as the pleasing sounds of “You are my Friend� fill Geekboy’s computer cavern, a smile fills my face.
I decided to give Yahoo another chance. This could be fun!
I added a few more Rain Parade songs to my playlist and kicked back. The sound quality is not very good – there is no indicator of sound file bit rate, but I assume it is somewhere in the 64-96 kbps range because it sounds brittle and overcompressed.
You can rate each song, which I assume alters your musical taste preferences for Launchcast radio.
Music is a powerful thing. I was starting to like this. I felt ashamed. Like somehow I had betrayed geeks everywhere.
I decided to let Yahoo search for other music files on my computer and it found 3500 files on my dual 200 gig drives!
Strangely, it listed music and other audio snippets from video games as songs. And some of the song titles were mislabeled “OLD HARD DRIVE� which told me something was very screwy with the Ye Olde Search Function.
At this point I notice Yahoo suggests The Smiths, Steve Earle and Johnny Cash, which I have a lot of MP3s of.
The Smiths’ song “Cemetery Gates� is misspelled. Tsk, tsk!
Did Yahoo extrapolate my musical preferences from my MP3 collection? I think so. This seems a bit invasive. I wonder what else they are searching for?
Paranoia sets in.
I tried the Launchcast radio station based on my personal preferences and Barry White’s “Just the way you are� fired up.
Paranoia subsides.
Though you are given the option of buying single tracks, I decide to buy the whole Rain Parade album — $8.48 for 11 songs, about 79 cents each.
I had to re-enter my credit card info. The songs began downloading, you can see their progress at the bottom of your browser. Whatever you do, leave things alone while they download. If you navigate away, you will have to redownload the songs again, I learned. I was not charged twice to do this, but why take the chance. Patience grasshopper!
You will have no idea where the music is being saved. You are not given the option of choosing a location.
I found the files in My Documents/My Music/My Yahoo Music Folder. By playing the files in WinAmp I learned they are not MP3s, but WMAs, a file type created by Microsoft that almost all portable devices support. The bit rate is 192kbps, which is good enough for all but the most snobbish of ears.
A “related artistâ€? for Rain Parade was Echo and the Bunnymen. I clicked the greatest hits collection “Songs to Learn and Singâ€? and bought it too — $7.87 for 15 songs, which is cheaper, 52 cents per track.
I have no idea why the price was different, Yahoo advertises “80 cents a song.�
Echo and the Bunnymen had 147 songs on Yahoo, which is more than Coldplay. That seemed odd but made me happy.
You can sort by date, title, popularity. That is handy. You can also sort by album, which is useful.
You can also read artist and album reviews, but some are what you might call terse. The Rain Parade review was one sentence – “A pleasant slab of psychedelic pop.�
The “burn CD� button on Yahoo Music Machine glared balefully.
I clicked it, hoping it would burn my playlist, which included only songs I had purchased.
It didn’t work. The program rudely informed my I did not have enough “rights� to burn the music I had paid for.
I fire up Nero Burning Rom, a popular CD burning program. I always liked the joke – Rome burned while Nero fiddled, thus the program is called Nero Burning Rome. Ah … the sweet pleasures of nerddom.
I load up the Rain Parade tracks in Nero and click “burn.�
I get the same message! Despite paying Yahoo $20 I can’t burn a single track to CD.
The wireless optical mouse goes flying. I should have stuck with the corded model.
Final thoughts:
It was fun to search for obscure artists and hear their songs again. Artists like Rain Parade deserved better than they got, and I am glad online services remember them.
Is it worth $6 a month? You would think so, but … the terms and conditions you must agree to are too restrictive.
The Yahoo user agreement says you cannot put music you have download and paid for onto a portable device like an iPod.
Geekboy doesn’t like that.
The music you have paid for, it seems, can’t even be moved to another computer!
But my real beef with Yahoo, and I assume all download sites will be the same, is that I feel I should be able to burn songs I have paid for down to a CD for use in my car.
Why pay $9 for an album you can only listen to on your computer? Why not scour Amazon.com for a used CD? Why not trek down to a used record shop and help out a local businessman?
Is convenience worth getting rooked?
Until things change, Geekboy won’t be using pay for play sites.
Yahoo! owes me a mouse
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It seems everyone’s got an MP3 player, but no one knows how to get the digital music party started.
You have three options when it comes to acquiring the musical goods:
1) Rip MP3s from your existing CD collection.
2) Download music from a legal “pay for play� site.
3) Steal ‘em.
Today we will begin looking at some of the more popular music download sites. I’ve only looked at one site, and the experience ended when I hurled my mouse against the wall in frustration, so, don’t expect this to be a glowing review. We’ll be hitting three more sites later if I don’t run out of mice.
YAHOO MUSIC MACHINE
Since I already had the required account, I decided to give Yahoo the first crack at getting my business.
I visited the Yahoo Music Unlimited site and noticed their program, called Yahoo Music Machine, only works with Windows XP.
Strike 1!
After supplying my credit card info, I downloaded the installer, which was so small I knew this would be a network install. This means you have not really downloaded a program in the traditional sense. Instead, you’ve just installed a list of files needed for the real program. Once you activate the installer it goes out on the Internet and downloads the many, sometimes from several sources.
This is actually a good way of doing things if you have more than one server, which Yahoo does.
Unfortunately, the install failed when it could not download a program component.
I surmise all the Yahoo Music Machine files are on one server, which is stupid if you’ve gone to the trouble of making a network installer.
Strike 2!
I took a break at a local Mexican restaurant and the downing of a couple of Texas margaritas improved my mood. Upon my return, the install worked.
Yahoo, true to their history, tried to take over my machine.
I selected “custom install� because I didn’t want all the bloatware Yahoo Music Machine is infested with – namely Yahoo Messenger and their web browser toolbar.
To be continued …
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