PluggedIn: 'Celestial Jukebox' Closer to Earth
Tue Jul 2,11:01 AM ET
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An independent digital music company has brought the much-hyped "celestial jukebox" a bit closer to earth with a service that provides unlimited access over the Internet to thousands of songs and dozens of custom radio stations.
With the announcement Monday that it had clinched a deal with Universal Music , Listen.com's Rhapsody service became the first authorized Internet song provider to offer music from all five major labels, along with more than 50 independent labels.
The company plans to add more features by the end of the year, such as CD burning and wireless access, in a bid to convince more music fans to pay $9.95 per month.
Legitimate, industry-approved Internet music services have struggled to compete against wildly popular unauthorized services like Napster ( news - web sites), Kazaa and Music City Morpheus that allow users to swap songs for free.
Two services launched by major labels last year, MusicNet
and Pressplay, have received thumbs-down reviews for their limited music selection and complicated rules, as well as antitrust scrutiny from the U.S. Justice Department ( news - web sites).
Rhapsody, which has signed up fewer than 100,000 users since its December launch, hopes to break the mold by allowing users to listen to as much music as they want on their computers. Microsoft Windows users with a high-speed Internet connection can search for songs by artist or title or listen to dozens of radio stations in formats ranging from acid jazz to alternative country. A "similar artists" feature allows users to explore new music by following suggestions from an interactive display.
CATALOG HAS LIMITS
With 178,000 songs from more than 5,000 artists, listeners should have plenty to choose from, said Listen.com spokesman Matt Graves.
But a test of the system quickly reveals the limits of the Rhapsody catalog. Neil Young fans can listen to many of the eccentric rocker's best-selling albums, but they won't hear "Tonight's the Night," his harrowing early-'70s examination of rock-star excess that gained cult status.
Rap fans can listen to all of "Enter the Wu-Tang," but not the follow-ups "Wu-Tang Forever" or "Iron Flag."
And some pop titans, like the Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan, are barely represented. A search for the Beatles turns up the Butthole Surfers, but nothing from the Fab Four.
The catalog gaps prompted a thumbs-down from some testers.
"This site is seriously lacking for audiophiles and archivists, but seems like it might be somewhat of a good thing for mindless radio listeners," said Wyatt Mitchell, a Chicago advertising consultant who owns more than 1,000 CDs.
Listen.com's Graves said the company must obtain permission from the record label, the publisher, and sometimes from the artist as well before making a song available. Artists like the Beatles, Radiohead and Metallica ( news - web sites) aren't on the service because they have retained the digital rights to their music and don't want to let it go, he said.
The service should have more than 200,000 songs by the end of July, and will continue steadily adding more, he said.
"We're going to continue cutting deals," he said.
Testers praised the service's Web-radio stations, its intuitive interface and its playlist feature, which allows users to track and organize the songs they've listened to.
BURNABLE SONGS, MOBILE ACCESS PLANNED
But none of these features would convince them to abandon free services like Limewire or Kazaa, they said, which place no restrictions on how the songs could be used. Without the ability to save songs and burn them to CD or move to a portable player, the service is of little use, they said.
"My biggest beef, of course, is that you get nothing to show for it in the end. Nothing on the disc. Yippie doo," said Rob Sullivan, a systems administrator at a Chicago Web-hosting firm.
Recording companies have been reluctant to allow their songs to be "burned" onto a CD, but have begun to change their tune. Rhapsody rival FullAudio said Monday it had reached a deal to allow users to burn songs from AOL Time Warner Inc .'s Warner Music, and Pressplay allows a limited number of songs to be burned each month.
Rhapsody expects to add a CD-burning feature by the end of the year, Graves said, most likely charging users an additional fee per song.
The service will also go wireless by the end of the year, he said, allowing users to set up playlists on their computers and listen to them over their mobile phones.
But Rhapsody still must convince users to pony up $10 each month for something they can easily find for free elsewhere. Graves touted Rhapsody's easy-to-use search interface, consistent song quality, and privacy guarantee as advantages over Kazaa and other services.
The "similar artists" feature was a significant advantage as well, Graves said.
"Kazaa is great if you want a one-way tool for finding a track, but then you hit a dead wall," he said.
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