Digressions and Other Inconsistencies

A few weeks ago, I reviewed the new Lala Music Service.  At the time, my first impressions were that it was an interesting concept that was done well enough to continue with a more thorough test drive.  As I’ve continued to use it, I’ve formed a few more opinions about it, which I will be only too thrilled to talk about now.

What Were Those Features, Again?

To quickly recap the standout features of Lala:

• A free online “music locker” with an iTunes-like interface to store your entire your music library online, giving you unlimited access to your library anywhere there’s an internet connection.
• If you want to add to your library, there are 6 million music tracks are available, any of which you can listen to once for free before buying it.
• Buy “web songs” for 10 cents each, which basically means buying the rights to listen to a track online unlimited times.  Or, download DRM free MP3 files for 79 to 99 cents each.
• Social networking features to allow you to follow other users, and vice versa, letting you see their playlists, music they’ve listened to recently, etc.

Thoughts From the Test Drive

I’ve actually used Lala quite a bit over the past few weeks, including using up my 50 free web song credits, offered to anyone who signs up.  I can tell you that it works as advertised, and works very well.  I discovered mostly good points about Lala, with just a couple quibbles. Here are some of them:

Good:  Music available anywhere with an internet connection.  Most people, including my wife, question why this is such a big deal.  “When are you ever away from your computer, or don’t have access to your portable music player?”  The answer:  “I don’t know, but I can’t guarantee that will never happen.”  It already happened to me once:  I was at my brother’s apartment, without my computer or my music player, and wanted him to hear a track.  So I logged into Lala on his machine, and played the track without a problem.   So, really, some may question whether this is really a great feature, but I argue that, first, it certainly doesn’t hurt, and second, it does prepare you for any unforeseen circumstances concerning accessing your music.

Good: Right off the bat, the basic idea of the service has worked well.  Streaming music has worked 99.9% of the time.  Occasionally, I find that longer tracks (at least ten minutes) sometimes have to pause because they caught up to the end of the buffer, and have to wait for more of the music to be streamed.  That rarely happens, however.

Good: In terms of setup, Lala is a better music store than the iTunes Store, for two reasons:  First, instead of 30 second samples, you can listen to an entire track once, which, in my opinion, is way better for trying to decide if you like a song, or not.   Second, instead of DRM’d files that only work on an iPod and specifically authorized computers that you get in iTunes, Lala provides MP3 files, which are completely DRM free and work on any portable music player.  (Yes, I know about iTunes Plus tracks, but that selection is still pretty limited, and is still in a more proprietary format than MP3’s.)

Good: 10 cent web songs are a really cheap way to discover and add music to your Lala library.  If you eventually decide you want to download the MP3 files, the 10 cents you already paid is subtracted from the MP3 price.

Good: The Lala Mover application keeps your desktop library synced with your online library and vice versa.  If you rip a CD onto your computer, the Lala Mover automatically adds those new tracks online.  If you buy MP3’s from Lala, those tracks will be downloaded and added to your desktop library.

Good/Bad: Only you can play any music from your library that Lala couldn’t match with its own licensed music online.  I’m sure this is due to copyright concerns, which is completely valid.  This is both a good and a bad thing.

• Good: It’s a good thing because some of the tracks in my library are music from people I know, or past college concerts and recitals.  I don’t want anybody else to be able to listen to that music just because they’re following my profile on Lala.  Also, my friends who’ve recorded their own music don’t want it available online, either, for multiple reasons.  This protects them by keeping that music private.
• Bad:  It’s also potentially a bad thing if most of your music is unmatched.  Lala couldn’t match two thirds of my library, so, even though it uploaded the rest just fine, I’m still quite handicapped as far as the social networking goes, since people can’t see most of my music.  That’s too bad, too, because I have a lot of music that I think people would enjoy if they were following me on Lala.

Bad:  Matching of classical music is very spotty, which is probably why two thirds of my library was missed.  I realize this is due to the differing conventions of naming the artist, the performers, how each movement is specified, etc., but it’s frustrating to me to find out that some of the tracks that were uploaded from my computer actually already existed on Lala, but used different naming conventions, and so Lala didn’t match those tracks.

The Verdict

Absolutely sign up and use Lala.  I don’t see any reason not to, really.  At the very least, it’s one more way to have your music with you wherever you are.  Besides that, it works well, its store has a good selection and is easy to use, and, if you’re connected to the internet most of the time (which is really becoming increasingly common), its 10 cent web songs become a very compelling option for gaining access to a lot of music for cheap.

Has anyone else tried it?  What do you think about it?