Napster To Go

Ease of installation is the hallmark of the Napster To Go subscription service. Listeners should find it a breeze to get it up and running and should have little trouble navigating the site. On the other hand, we found Napster lacking in musical depth, and consequently found ourselves spending less time tuning into it than we did to the other two services.

 

As with Rhapsody and Yahoo, you have to download Napster’s own software to subscribe. However, Napster managed to work without any of the hiccups we experienced playing the other two. Like Yahoo, this service demands that you enter a credit card number before they’ll let you try it out (an annoyance we could do without). You must remember to cancel the service after seven days, or you’ll start racking up charges.

 

Napster offers a solid array of streaming custom radio stations to listen to that cover nearly every genre. You can browse new and popular releases from artists like the Ravonettes. However, both aspects of the service could use some improvement.

 

The radio stations act like streaming playlists, allowing you to skip to a track that you want to hear immediately. The stations lacked a certain degree of imagination. In other words, if you’re at all familiar with an area of music, say speed metal, you could probably do a better job programming the station yourself. Furthermore, when you start drilling down through Napster’s selections, you may hit the occasional obstruction. Clicking over to the alternative rock page gives you a handful of recent releases, but when you select all the newest listings on the page, it churns out a page of new releases covering a variety of popular music.

 

In addition to such confusing navigational choices, we found that other aspects of Napster meant that it was not as conducive to discovering new music. It doesn’t provide as many pointers to other music as Rhapsody, and it came up short when we searched for some more obscure acts. Both Rhapsody and Yahoo Music Unlimited had the popular Canadian indie rock band The Arcade Fire. Napster did not.

 

In spite of our criticisms, Napster delivers what it promises: a hassle-free music subscription plan that makes your music mobile. There’s the occasional nice feature, such as exclusive Billboard chart playlists. Unfortunately, we think most ardent music fans with more esoteric tastes may be better served by subscribing to Rhapsody.
www.napster.com