A 3 or 6 month subscription to Rhapsody makes a great stocking stuffer or send item for those far away music lovers. Both Rhapsody Unlimited and Rhapsody To Go (transfer tracks to your MP3 player) are available as well as a download pack of 50 songs for $34.99 – that’s $.70 per track for those of you who are math impared .

Click here to see the gift subscription options on Rhapsody

I was really looking forward to this show. David Lee Roth is back, Eddie Van Halen looks to be in great shape, good venue for a show and the right group of friends to make a memorable evening. Too bad Van Halen mailed in the show. As we left the Key Arena and walked down the hill to our cars, the conversation from the entire group was in general negative. Some general comments:
- The energy level from the band was low. Diamond Dave did a lot of walking around the main stage, Eddie didn’t seem excited about being there until really late in the show when he grabbed a smoke and then did a few kicks.
- The band looked great. Both Diamond Dave and Eddie are in great shape. Dave wore a series of signature jackets with asian inspired stitching while Eddie was shirt free for the entire show with signature baggy pants and tennis shoes. Wolfgang looked like a 16 year old kid playing bass in his high school band and Alex looked old.
more »

The Rhapsody compatible devices are starting to come fast and furious now! iRiver Clix, updated Sansa, TiVo and now Haier America (I’ve never heard of them either) is rolling out the Ibiza. The nicest feature of this player (other than the much larger harddrive than flash players) is that they actually connect to Rhapsody.com via WiFi. This is a much nicer integration than a simple drag the Rhapsody playlist or channel onto your MP3 player.

Here’s a shot of the device:
more »

Rhapsody announced in October that the music service will be available to TiVO subscribers through their DVRs. This is like taking all of the 800 poorly programmed stations on channels 900 – 999 and replacing them with a library of 6,000,000+ full songs, 750,000+ albums, 100′s of good channels and playlists that you choose. This is great for both Rhapsody who gets the service in front of millions of TiVO owners and TiVO who adds a really great option to their DVR.

Here’s a screenshot of the TiVo menu with Rhapsody:. Notice how it is built seamlessly into the TiVo interface.
more »

We’ll chalk this one up to glass half-full. Led Zeppelin in now on Rhapsody but only as a catalog to buy, not stream. It’s nice to see the entire catalog and there are some live interview clips, but unfortunately, we can’t stream them. I don’t see Led Zeppelin at all on Napster (other than some lame tribute bands) so score another one for the Rhapsody label relationships.

Not to fear! You can stream Led Zeppelin on Rhapsody via the Classic Rock music channels (located on the channel guide tab) AND the Led Zeppelin artist channel (located in the upper right side of the Led Zeppelin artist page). If you have Zep albums on your harddrive, make sure you have imported them into your Rhapsody library (file > add media to my library) and rock on!

I was looking at a buying guide in the Seattle P-I called “Make a Geek Smile” (I consider myself less of a geek, more of a connoisseur of fine technology) by Scott Taves and as an aside, he had this to say about Rhapsody when reviewing the iPod Touch.

“It’s a shame about touch’s relationship issues. Paired with an online music service like Rhapsody, we’d have near perfection. I started using Rhapsody’s To Go subscription ($14.99 per month, rhapsody.com) free several months ago as part of the review process for the iRiver Clix media player. When it came time for the complimentary period to end, I gladly shelled out for a paid subscription. It’s exceptionally easy to use and the music selection is vast. What I usually end up doing is looking for a specific song or album. With one click you can add it to your library where it’s a simple drag and drop to transfer it to any media player you’ve registered.
more »

Rick Broida of PC Magazine recently reviewed both Rhapsody and Napster and gave Rhapsody the nod for Editor’s Choice over Napster. While Rick has some user interface issues with both Rhapsody and Napster, he gives the nod to Rhapsody because of the availability of the Rhapsody catalog on Rhapsody.com music portal. He also likes the way Rhapsody has integrated music videos into the services. “Rhapsody trumps Napster also in the video department: The Music Videos page includes new releases, multiple spotlight artists, browsing by genre and artist, and keyword searches.”

Other things Rick liked about Rhapsody:
more »

On Nov 1, RollingStone launched it’s first full digital edition. This is pretty cool because they have never put ALL of their articles, reviews, etc. from a single edition online. It is a very interesting combination of words and the ability to hear the songs immediately through Rhapsody Online. If you go to the Charts page (pg. 212), you can listen to most all of the tracks and albums that are on this page. Click here to go to the digital version of 40 years of RollingStone.com

Overall, I like the integration of content and music. However I have some issues with the viewer they are using and how difficult it is to read. Literally, they have re-created all the pages of the magazine in a viewer format. Same pages, same size, same delivery. While kind of cool, it doesn’t work as well as using dynamic web pages and formating the content for the web. There is not an easy way to skip large chunks of pages, the resolution is not great when the entire page is in the viewer and even when expanded to be readeable – it’s not very condusive to browsing and linking. I think they need to ditch this viewer format and figure out a way to integrate the content into the web browser with the same links to play the music. They’ve already started down that path, now the need to finish it.

I love Neil Young. Old, cranky, pissed off and rockin’ in the free world. I love the Canadian cynicism, the warbley voice that can soar and the spot on writing. I’ve seen him live twice before, but this was by far my favorite. The stage was smallish, cluttered with guitars, banjos, two pianos (grand and upright), a wooden indian and an oil can. His wife Pegi opened with a short set from her new album and he was backed by his band from his latest album “Chrome Dreams II” – Ben Keith (pedal-steel guitar, dobro and other instruments), Rick Rosas (bass) and Ralph Molina of Crazy Horse (drums).

This was my first show at the WaMu Theater and even though the space was no where near as cozy as the Triple Door, the sound was fantastic and Neil sounded wonderful. Neil was wearing a rumpled suit and played on and off for over 3 hours. The tickets were expensive (but worth it) and the crowd was in the 40+ range but very enthusiastic.
more »

I’m more excited than a princess dog at a pink sweater symposium! One of my all time favorite bands is finally going to release their full catalog to digital music services. No word from Rhapsody if this includes them (I hope it does!) but the mere thought of accessing Dazed and Confused while at work or digging through albums I haven’t listened to in forever or sampling live and/or rare stuff that I’ve never heard just gives me the willies.

The release is set to coincide with a one night only renuion show at the O2 in London in November and the release of a greatest hits album Mothership. Additionally, LZ has signed a deal with Verizon to sell ringtones. Can’t wait to have a meeting broken up by the opening riff of Whole Lotta Love. Sweet!