let the addiction begin!
Written: Jun 18 '06 (Updated Jun 18 '06)
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I was recommended by a sales associate at a local BestBuy store to try out Rhapsody. I thought I will cancel the account after the trial period (who likes to pay recurring charges anyways), little did I know, I got hooked on Rhapsody since then.
I have been using Rhapsody for almost two years now. Many friends of mine are amazed by how I have access to so much good music. As a result I was asked a few times to pick music and be the DJ for some local parties! The following are some of my opinions on this product/service:
Interface:
Just like many other music player software, Rhapsody offers a very intuitive interface. Buttons (such as play, stop, pause, previous, next) for music control are very intuitively laid out. Playlists are available for both streaming music, or downloaded music, or a mix of both. One neat feature is that it has a slider to control which part of the music you want to "jump" to. Sounds like it should be a given? I always take that for granted until I tried out some other subscription music service that did not let users to slide the bar around for streaming music. Having this feature for streaming music is great because I like to know how the chorus of a music sounds like before I decide to spend the next few minutes listening to it (or downloading it) especially if the beginning of the music is not that catchy.
Accessing Music:
Rhapsody allows both streaming music while connected to the internet as well as downloading music into your computer/portable device. Of course like most media transfer over the internet, dial-up is not recommended.
Music:
This is the best part. I like a broad range of music, from latin to oriental, from classical to new age, from "the-night-before-exam" relaxing music to dance music. And guess what, I can find most of what I want on Rhapsody. I have found some very surprising collection/artists on Rhapsody such as Gotan Project, Latin Jam, Alex To (one of my fav asian R&B singers), Singapore Symphony Orchestra etc besides the everyday Britney, Whitney, and Nelly. There is also no lack of classic works from Beethoven to Kenny G, from Luis Miguel to Ella Fitzgerald. Not only there is a broad range of music, these guys at Rhapsody really work hard to get new music on there. Remember Taylor Hicks from American Idol? His singles are already available on Rhapsody only 2 weeks after he won the competition! (So is the American Idol Season 5 Encore... um yes I am a fan of American Idol)
Portability:
With a small fee, users can download and play music from Rhapsody through portable players such as an Ipod. Also with a small fee, tracks can be burnt on CDs.
Videos:
The newer version of Rhapsody has an even better feature: Music Videos. This is putting its competitors to shame. While the selection and variety of music videos available on Rhapsody is not as comprehensive as its music collection, this is definitely a good feature to have.
Cool discovery:
Rhapsody makes recommendations to users based on the types of music the user has been listening to/downloading. While not perfect, this neat little feature does expand my musical horizon and I get to listen to artists and songs that I have never heard of, and I like alot of them! Another good thing about this feature is that I actually found the songs that I have always wanted but never knew their names. However, I have to say, some other music service (eg Yahoo Unlimited) has better intelligence built-in for music recommendation.
Other neat features include radio stations, new releases, staff picks, exclusives, etc as well as repeat, shuffle functions.
Of course, Rhapsody is not perfect. Not all music are available on Rhapsody. However, these songs are not available on other music services as well. In fact, comparing Rhapsody and Yahoo Unlimited, Rhapsody returns a higher search result with the same key words, and it loads up and connects faster!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
pickyguy
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Reviews written: 2
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