Music Subscriptions Services – The Dirty Laundry

I’ve used several services and they all taste the same to me. All of the services draw an analogy to an all-you-eat buffet – ironically this makes Dave Matthews Band, Radiohead, Metallica, Led Zepplin and The Beatles (until next month) like lobster, no where to be seen.

Another lie (misleading statement) is the size of the buffet, many of these services tout millions of tracks. The reality is that the number of tracks they claim are the number of tracks licensed, not actually available for subscription, so the real number is much, much less. Death Cab For Cutie and Prince only allow half of their albums to be offered for subscription. Also, they count the edited(decaf) and PA version as two different tracks. Why anyone would want to listen to edited music is beyond me, but regardless, who would want two versions of Eminem’s “Curtain Call”? They also count the radio single and the same track on the album as two tracks. Is there a Karaoke version of the same exact album, guess what, they count that as an additional track.

All of the subscription services sans eMusic(they call it a subscription services but its just a bastardized al a carte business model) utilize Microsoft’s DRM. When I find music I like, I drag it to a playlist and then synchronize it to one of my portable players. A week or two will go buy and then I’ll decide to hit the gym, strap on my digital music player, only to find that I can’t play any of the music I paid for – every so often the licenses need to be renewed. Look, I’m not a complete buffoon, I understand that this is to prevent someone from subscribing for a month and using the music for life, however, instead of letting greedy lawyers devise the business rules, why not use some common sense – the licenses should last as long as the charge on my batteries. Low power! That’s what causes me to plug my MP3 device into my computer.

Unlike a buffet, if I try one dish, these services try to recommend another dish I might like – the problem is that I don’t find these services offer a good method for music discovery. Typically, I’ll hear a song on TV, a movie, and less and less frequently, the radio. Then I go to my subscription service to get the music.

Finally, my work pays for my account, if it didn’t I wouldn’t fork out $15/month as I don’t consume that much – maybe when I was in high school or college, but back then I didn’t have that kind of disposable income.