Rhapsody

[Undertoad]

I'm digging on this new approach by Audiogalaxy.

It's streaming "CD-quality" audio that you get by downloading their special client software.

You don't get to save the music. The format is proprietary. That's the ONLY down side.

$10/month gets you access to everything they're allowed to stream in this way. And that varies. It looks like about a third of what I'd want, at this point.

I'm an excellent target for this thing. I do most of my music listening at the computer. Most of that listening is from MP3, of which about 3/4ths of my "collection" was ripped by me personally.

It amazes me to say this, but the streaming is the best part about it. You search for music with their client software; you see what you want; you click play; a second later, it's playing. From the net, in high-quality. (I'd rate it at maybe a little lower quality than mp3, but not objectionable. Put it this way: ten times better than FM radio.)

They expect to expand to be able to burn disks at some point in the future. At this point, all you can do is listen all day and all night and it's still only $10. And here's the interesting part: it's all legal.

I went and got the client. It's pretty good. Now here's what really sold me. In half an hour of playing around, I had:

A) Discovered that almost everything I currently enjoy is in the category of "Trip-Hop". (Sidebar: when you get old, you don't keep up with pop culture, so you don't know what everything is.)

B) Discovered that there were 10 artists in the category that I had never heard before. Listened to a little of each one. Liked almost all of them.

So for less than the price of a CD, suddenly I have a month of stuff I will enjoy. I just can't take it in the car. Well, that's OK! They list 108 artists in the trip-hop category... I have my work cut out for me.