Digital Music To Go - Rhapsody 3.0 Basics

This is the first in a 3 part series that covers what I call the "big three" digital music services. I have tried each service first hand for an extended period of time and each of them has their unique benefits.

The best part about all of these services is that you get access to over 1,000,000 songs for a low monthly fee. For a former CD junkie like myself, this has saved me a ton of money. I used to spend $10 bucks a CD and I would by 15-20 CD's a month. Now I spend less than $10 bucks a month for all of the music I want.

Rhapsody has been around for a while and it recently underwent a major facelift. The most significant change is the addition of the Rhapsody to Go feature. This feature allows you to download a songs from Rhapsody without buying them and transfer them to your mp3 player. You can transfer as many songs as you like as long as you pay the monthly subscription fee, currently $14.99 a month. The songs will play on your mp3 player as long as you continue to subscribe. You will have to plug your player in each month to renew the music licenses or else your songs will stop working.

Unfortunately, not all mp3 players are compatible with this service, so make sure that you check with Rhapsody before you sign up. Currently, the compatible players include the Creative Zen Micro, the IRiver H10, and the Dell DJ.

If you are not interested in taking songs to go, you can always just listen to the songs directly on your computer. Rhapsody has an excellent interface that is easy to use. Songs and artists are organized by category and you can save your favorite songs and artists so that you can access them easily in the future. Rhapsody even allows you to catalog your own mp3 collection and burn CD's.

Out of all of the services, Rhapsody is the quickest to respond in terms of playing music. Just click on a song, and almost instantly it begins playing on your computer. The quality is great and if you can either plug your computer into your home stereo system or hook up a pair of quality pc speakers. Then listen to any song that you want or create your own playlists that match your mood.

Rhapsody also includes a great selection of internet radio stations that come with the Rhapsody unlimited subscription. These stations will automatically pick songs for you based upon the theme of the station. The cool part is, if you don't like the song playing on the station, you can instantly skip to the next song. Plus, there are no commercials. You can also develop a custom station that is based upon your music tastes.

Currently, Rhapsody is offering a free version that includes 25 free radio stations and 25 free song plays a month. If you want to sign up for the full version, there is a 14 day free trial during which you can listen to and transfer all of the music you want.

Digital Music To Go

It's a great service and if you buy a lot of CD's it should save you a lot of money. My favorite aspect of Rhapsody is being able to listen and try out new music that I wouldn't normally buy. I've found a lot of great new artists this way and I never would have discovored some of them. We'll discuss Rhapsody a lot more in the future but for now this should get you started.