From Issue #5 , Page #56 | By Rachel Cericola

Where do you want to download? New sites are popping up everyday--here's a sampling of 6 online music services.

It's hard to remember life pre-Internet. Like the days when you had to buy the entire MC Hammer album because you couldn't get enough of "U Can't Touch This"? Whether you want the perfect party mix, to sample new music, relive past musical preferences, or find all of those oh-so-many guilty pleasures, there are a lot of times when buying an album just isn't worth your hard-earned dollars.

Many of you have already tried downloading music, and if you haven't, you're probably missing out on one of the most fulfilling shopping experiences on the Web. Nothing compares to instant gratification! But so many services have popped up lately, it's getting harder to figure out which one is the ultimate one-stop shop for new music.

Apple iTunes
www.apple.com/itunes
While other services may have triggered the downloading trends, Apple iTunes has set that standard for the "pay if you want to play" model.

iTunes comes in the form of one download, which will put a launch icon on your desktop. The interface is incredibly easy; there's one search bar--that's it. There's no need to specify title, artist or whatever. We did occasionally get too much information; while searching for Elvis Costello's "Monkey to Man," we got almost every song and artist to ever use the word "monkey" (and believe it or not, there are a lot of them). We wanted the service to be a little more selective on those rare incidents where we actually knew the complete song title.

There is plenty of content overall, which includes exclusive tracks, previews to albums, a peek at celebrity playlists (Eric Stoltz likes Burt Bacharach and Sammy Hagar enjoys Jan & Dean?), and a nice selection of streaming radio stations. There are no monthly fees, just the occasional email with offers to come spend our money on new music.

Each track is competitively priced at 99 cents. Most albums were $9.99, but you could find some in the bargain bin. The selection was stellar overall, but we got the occasional shocker. For instance, soundtracks were available for Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bridget Jones' Diary, but not for Chicago--the multi-Oscar winner for 2002. And while we we able to find multiple versions of the song "White Lines," the one we were looking for--the original by Grandmaster Flash--was nowhere to be found.

All iTunes songs download as MPEG4 audio, better known as AAC (advanced audio coding). These files can't be played through Windows Media Player, and are only compatible with the iPod family. However, WMA files can be coverted into AAC files, as long as you have the original CD. Any music that you've downloaded from other services won't work because it's protected. However, if you burn those tracks to CD, you should be able to reload the songs into iTunes.

This is a great solution for PC users, and the only one for Mac, as far as we're concerned. It's surprising that so many other services don't acknowledge Mac as a viable market for music, considering iTunes is still the granddaddy of all downloading services.

Interface: 4
Song Selection: 3
Fees: 3
Overall: 4

Sony Connect
www.connect.com
Sony's service is a relatively new kid on the block, so we wanted to cut it some slack, but frankly, it just didn't make the musical connection we were hoping for. It's like taking someone bowling for the first time. You say "good effort," but you really don't understand how they can't knock a few pins down--even by accident. OK, so Connect isn't a total gutterball, but it certainly seems like the launch was a bit rushed.

The site provides the software as a free download, but once we launched it on our computer, there seemed to be a whole lot of loading going on. We went through multiple wizards, which were simple, but enough was enough--we were ready to start rocking out.

Once the program launched, we still found ourselves scrolling around the screen (we really need a bigger monitor). The interface is appealing, and even offered some cool little facts on the home page. After all, we didn't know that David Bowie has a permanently dilated pupil which causes his eyes to be two different colors--neato!

We also thought it was great that the service had so many different genres. Many of you might not know--or care--but Connect actually has categories like Punk/Hardcore, Hard Rock/Heavy Metal and Underground Hip-Hop. If you don't want to browse through categories, just type in your selection, and select artist, title, album, or whatever from the pull-down menu. Once you find your selection, you'll get a nice little write-up on the artist, as well as similar artists if you're in an experimental mood. And although it lists each artist's albums (at least the ones they have on file), the way each artist was laid out seemed a little disorganized. Some had samples of top songs, some didn't, and some of those selections were highly suspect!

The exclusive content was much appreciated, and might be the main reason to check out this service. For instance, you can find all live musical performances from the Jimmy Kimmel Live show, including tracks that might not have been aired on broadcast TV.

Overall, the service is still in its infancy, and it showed in some spots, especially in its search features. But what really killed us was once we downloaded, the files transferred as OMA files. What's OMA? We didn't want to know. Not to worry though: You can choose to burn in ATRAC, MP3 or audio formats. But when you play through your PC, you'll have to go through Windows Media Player. Frankly, we have enough types of music files already in our mix, but Sony wants you to play theirs. We can't blame them, but it might turn off some visitors.

Interface: 2
Song Selection: 3
Fees: 3
Overall: 2

Real Rhapsody
www.rhapsody.com
Imagine almost any song ever recorded at your fingertips--and on demand. That's the idea behind Real Rhapsody. Hands down, this service is the best way to stream audio. But it only works with PCs (sorry Mac). It also costs money. But for $9.95 per month, you can play DJ with over 800,000 songs. You can also take some of those tunes with you, by downloading for an additional 79 cents per track.

Rhapsody is a simple Web download. They offer a free trial period, but you will have to give them your credit card to start your musical experiment. The interface is very easy to work through. Just log in, and start searching for songs. Clicking on tracks will get you instant playback, depending on your connection. Each chosen song will appear in a playlist in case you want to go back to it later. You can also transfer tracks to your library for burning at a later date.

We liked the fact that Rhapsody remembered our playlist from the past, as we found ourselves wanting to listen to Journey on more than one occasion (and we're not proud of it). The bad news is that Rhapsody won't let you download songs to your hard drive. If you want to buy them, you've got to burn them. But that shouldn't be a big deal; you can listen to music on-demand so you really don't need to clutter your hard drive anyway. However, if you want to put any purchases on a portable player, you'll have to burn it, and then reload it to your hard drive.

Overall, the service was great. It was nice to be able to play Britney Spears, while saving us the shame of purchasing it. But everything comes at a price! The question is whether music lovers will want to pay yet another monthly fee to have instant access.

Interface: 4
Song Selection: 3
Fees: 3
Overall: 3

MSN Music
music.msn.com
As if anyone is surprised, Microsoft is ready to give Apple a run for your money. With over one million songs on tap, MSN Music is a definite contender for your song-spending dollars. However, one thing that iTunes has over this and every other service currently out there: It is still the only one that wants PC and Mac users to sing and spend in perfect harmony. So while MSN Music is currently just for the PC user, it definitely is an impressive service considering that, at press time, it had launched less than a month ago.

Use your existing Web browser to check out what the store has to offer. There's no downloads needed--ever. But you can also access the store through Windows Media Player. If you're going to do that, however, we recommend updating to version 10 before you begin. With Windows Media Player 10, downloaded songs can be played on five computers. If you start out with a lesser version, it may mess up the "rights" process. Also your playlist can be burned to CD up to seven times, and there are unlimited rights for transferring songs to portable audio devices.

The interface is clean, and fits nicely on our little screen. Like iTunes, you can do all of your searching through one bar, and you only have to hum a few bars to find what you're looking for. And like other services, you can also search for material by genre.

Samples can be played through your browser, although we did have the occasional plug-in problem and got only the sounds of silence. Songs can be downloaded as WMA files for 99 cents each. There are a lot of artists that you can't find on other sites, but don't expect to download your favorite tracks--many times you can only find entire albums here. For instance, an MSN Music rep boasted to us at one point how all of Madonna's albums were available here and nowhere else--but we only found them in album form, and frankly, if we're going to buy an entire album, we want it to come with cover art.

If you're not in the mood to download, you can listen to one of the many free radio stations, most of which are categorized by genre. One neat feature they have are the "local" stations--a selection of pre-programmed Web radio stations designed to mimic your favorite local broadcast radio stations. We enjoy our local indie station, and we got one that catered to our tastes, without the commercial interruptions.

MSN Music should certainly draw a lot of traffic. The service is dedicated to the entire entertainment experience. Get a sneak peek at upcoming and favorite TV programs, watch music videos, check out new movies and even purchase movie and concert tickets. It also has a lot of fun user-friendly features like Senior Class, which lets you view, sample and purchase songs from your graduating year, or even trace musical roots on the Map of Music.

Interface: 4
Song Selection: 3
Fees: 3
Overall: 4

Napster
www.napster.com
If you've never heard of Napster, then you are really a late bloomer. In short, Napster was the service that sparked much of the downloading trends. It also used to be free. So after a slew of legal problems, Napster has reemerged as a pay service, and it's almost as good as it used to be--which can be viewed as a good and a bad thing.

There are two versions of the service: Napster and Napster Light. Napster Light is great if you just want to buy and burn songs, or transfer them to your MP3 player. There's no subscription fee; you pay per song or album download.

For this review, we went hog wild and signed up for the full version of Napster, which is $9.95 per month. At first, we had a few problems where the service kept signing us out due to inactivity, although we were very active at the time. We also encountered a lot of artists' pages, which initially said they couldn't be displayed, only to pop up a second later.

The interface, overall, was a bit disorienting. At times, a left-hand menu with artists and album folders would pop up, only to disappear later. We didn't know if we were clicking or not clicking something, but it was too much of a wild ride. It's easy to create an on-going playlist by dragging and dropping one of the over 700,000 songs into the right-hand column. The per-track pricing structure is a little weird. First of all, even though we paid the monthly fee, we still had to cough up 99 cents per WMA download--not much of a bargain. But if you buy a Track Pack, which consists of 15, 25 or 50 tracks in one shopping trip, Napster will treat you to a 20 percent discount, making tracks about 80 cents each.

Probably one of the biggest downers is that it doesn't have the endless amount of songs that previous Napster users might expect, but it's not too shabby either. The service boasts about 700,000 tracks and 45,000 artists. There are also 50 commercial-free radio stations, and Napster will even customize a station based on tracks in your library.

Overall, we had a lot of buffering problems, which could have been our connection, but we didn't have this many problems on other sites. Also, once we created our playlist, skipping through tracks resulted in a few seconds of delays every time. And although we appreciate all of the categories offered, some were a bit suspect. For instance, when we looked up Indie Labels, we got Britney Spears, Elvis, Kiss and many more that didn't even come close to qualifying.

But the service also had its upside. Just like the Napster of yore, it's an active community. Browse other subscribers' music collections, and copy their tracks and playlists. It's not free, but it's a neat way to find new or forgotten music. You can even make new friends, take part in the message boards and send track and playlist recommendations using your Napster Inbox.

At press time, Napster had another service in the works--Napster To Go. It will cost you a little more, but instead of buying and burning tracks, you will be able to load unlimited songs to your MP3 player for just the one monthly fee.

Interface: 2
Song Selection: 3
Fees: 3
Overall: 3

Wal-Mart
musicdownloads.walmart.com
The Wal-Mart version of music downloading reminded us a lot of the store. It had great bargains, no frills, and we felt a little guilty shopping there. The Wal-Mart motto of "always low prices" holds up here; at 88 cents per song and $9.44 for albums, they are basically undercutting all of the current competition without adding a monthly fee.

The Wal-Mart service works through your standard Web browser. When you purchase songs, they are delivered via a download of WMA files. You can also download a program, which will allow you to access the Wal-Mart store through Windows Media Player.

Overall, the song selection is not stellar. It's not as large as other services we reviewed, and since Wal-Mart is a family-friendly place, all of the tracks here are wiped clean of bad language. You'll only find radio edits, not necessarily the album versions.

Once we purchased songs, the real work began. First we were asked to sign our life away and read through 18 items ranging from waivers to honesty policies. We didn't read through them in detail--after all, we wanted to get the real consumer experience. We launched our purchases, which included backing up license files, which was a new one for us. Purchased songs can be burned to CD 10 times, and you can also make unlimited transfers to portable players, as long as that player supports DRM (digital rights management). Forget about using an iPod with this service, but also many Windows Media-compliant players don't necessarily support DRM either. Refer to the player's manual for more information.

Wal-Mart is a great option for parents worried about what their kids are listening to. For the rest, it's worth a peek if you're looking for quick hits at a cheap price.

Interface: 3
Song Selection: 2
Fees: 4
Overall: 3

What is Bit Rate?

Bit rate refers to the number of bits transferred in one second by a digital device. A higher rate usually means better sound quality because more information is being moved. When it comes to legitimate downloading services, the difference in quality is pretty negligible.

Don't Get Burned--5 Quick Burner Tips

Remember the days when your computer didn't come with a burner? Neither do we. Step into the 21st century and get yourself an upgrade before someone finds out. Just keep a few things in mind and you'll be burning so much, you'll practically break out in a sweat.

1) CD-R and CD-RW: A CD-R is a recordable CD. You can write to it once and that's it. CD-RW can be erased and used multiple times, just like a floppy disk. When you buy blank discs, make sure they come close to the speeds on your burner, otherwise, you may get a lot of errors.
2) Internal or External? If you're afraid of what's living inside your hard drive, consider getting an external burner. It's easy to install, and you can share it with a laptop or other PCs in your house. The downside is that external models are usually more expensive.
3) DVD: You don't even have a CD burner yet, and the technology has already gone to the next level--now you can burn DVDs.
4) Know Your Numbers: You'll notice on the front or on the box of any CD burner, it has numbers like these: 52x24x52x. The first number is the speed in which it writes to a CD-R, the second is the speed in which it writes to a CD-RW, and the third is the speed that it reads a CD. Try to find a burner with the highest combination of numbers.
5) Software: A lot of burners come bundled with software. This is fine if you just want to burn CDs, but many are just "lite" versions and won't allow you to take full advantage of what the equipment can do.

Browse the rest of our Digital Entertainment, Home Theater, and Home Computing pages for more iPod comparisons and accessories, MP3 players, DVD and CD-R burners, and music downloading information.