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Alternatives to Rhapsody?

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 1:48 pm
by Luke
I recently subscribed to Rhapsody. I love the service... I can listen to pretty much any music I want any time I want, but the software (it's made by Real, who's ALWAYS sucked at making software) is a steaming pile of you-know-what. It logs me out about every 20 minutes or so, or it just starts skipping or looping over certain parts of songs, and it uses IE for a lot of stuff, so many times you have to clear all your cookies in IE (not that it really matters, because I never use that pile of crap). It's just all around CRAP. Does anybody know of a similar service, but with decent software? If you did, you'd be my hero!

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 1:54 pm
by TheMoose
Free? Yahoo! Launchcast. If you want a similar subscription based service, Napster is pretty solid (free listening to most music, 99c downloads), or Zune (Microsoft Marketplace) has the same thing (except you use MS points to download, which you can buy or get via XBL accomplishments).

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 2:14 pm
by Benjamin
I share the sentiment regarding software made by real. I refuse to install it on any computer I use.

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 2:16 pm
by MrPotatoes
last.fm
itunes
winamp

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 4:54 pm
by superdezign
astions wrote:I share the sentiment regarding software made by real. I refuse to install it on any computer I use.
It was just always soo slow for me. And then they always wanted money... Luckily, the Real Media format isn't as popular as it used to be, partly thanks to YouTube. :-D

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:23 pm
by Luke
It's a really cool service. I can stream music (pretty much anything I want) all day long at work every day for $12/mo. I am more than willing to pay that to listen to anything I want any time I want w/out the hastle of burning CDs and carrying them around and without having to download songs to go into an MP3 player... I'm just far too lazy for all that. I love just being able to go on my computer and select whatever CD I like and just play it. It sucks that they can't write software that isn't retarded. I wrote them an email complaining about it and they said it was because of my firewall. Yea... ok. :roll:

Are any of those services that you guys listed comparable to this?

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:45 pm
by JellyFish
Strange, Rhapsody always worked for me...

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 8:42 pm
by TheMoose
Napster. You pay like $14 a month (don't quote me on that price, not sure), and you can listen to almost anything (there are a few things set to Download Only).
Yahoo! Launchcast Plus is similar. You set up "stations" by picking artists and genres that you like, and it will play songs that are both the artists you chose, and/or similarly themed music that you can then give 0-4 stars. The more you rate on that given station, the more specific to your tastes it becomes (it "learns" your tastes by your ratings).

Check out Yahoo! Launch, the basic service is free (you can't set your own stations), plus I believe they have a 1-2 week free trial period where you can test drive the Plus service.

EDIT: http://www.Pandora.com is also similar to Yahoo!'s service. You create a station by selecting an Artist that you like, and it will do the rest. Then as you rate the songs it plays, it learns your tastes (it learns better than Yahoo! from my experience so far).

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 11:13 pm
by Luke
TheMoose... check out ninja radio in my sig ;)

I like Pandora, but most of the time I like to be able to just pick an album to listen to. I am the kind of person who listens to a whole album front to back. I enjoy music much more that way.

Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 12:10 am
by anthony88guy
have a catch all email? check out XM's 3 day free trial of satellite radio online...


I have XM in my car that I pay monthly for... but to listen online I'd have to pay more? Yeah okay...

Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 9:38 am
by TheMoose
I prefer Sirius over XM, personally. One thing's for sure, I will never listen to regular radio again!


Slightly off topic (but kind of on-topic as well): The past week both of my cars have had issues, first my truck with Sirius, then my Mustang with regular radio. I ended up driving my mom's car with XM in it, and I don't like it nearly as much as Sirius. They even have an "online only" plan for $12.95 a month (access to ALL their channels, just over the internet instead).

Yeah I didn't even realize you had a Pandora account, otherwise I would've just not said anything ;)