I’ve been neglecting to check out Napster for a while now. Any vague conception I had of it as a pay service was formed in the era of some defunct antecedent. What’s the point? If I can’t get it on eMusic it will be on Amazon or iTunes, where I already have accounts.
It is long past relevance, originality, or humor to dwell on the irony of mainstream retail appropriating the brand of the original Robber Baron of musical file sharing. What remains is the sort of baffling fact that Napster still exists at all, let alone that its reincarnation in service of the tottering pressplay, erstwhile Sony-Universal experiment turned last ditch effort at relevance by Roxio, was worth over $120 million to Best Buy. (Fun fact that fell out of my Napster research: Kazaa coughed up $100 million to settle with the record industry and got bought and relaunched as yet another pay service. Who knew?)
I won’t begin to speculate what all went into the calculation of that price tag for BBY. The mystical force that finally drew me to dabble in the new Napster, however, is not so mysterious. It was Coca-Cola points. I have a weakness for that most consumerist of products, ultra-branded sugar water, in defiance of my better health or communist sympathies. I keep saying I’m going to give it up and I keep accumulating caps with their little codes to be entered for digital pseudo-currency which in turn may be redeemed in a radically inadequate store. Camel bucks were a better deal, aside from the cancer. Previously I’d redeemed a coupon for downloads from the Rhapsody store: that had went reasonably well. When a similar offer presented itself I figured the time was right.
What is there to say about the interface? They all look the same. They all work great if your habit is to buy whatever shit dominates the radio and television month to month. It’s always easy enough to find something you want if you already know exactly what it is. They’re all completely useless for random shopping. Napster adds some weird twists on the experience. They’re clearly trying, with a bunch of playlist-y vectors to drill into the catalog with. It’s a weird mix, though, with some weird choices. The day's Featured New Releases section included an album with a title along the lines of “Greatest Moments in Bagpipes.” Some of the playlists are almost militantly clichéd - “One Hit Wonders of the ‘80s” could have been cribbed directly from a half hour special on VH1. Others are completely bizarre: a collection of classical tracks titled “Mythological Monsters - Music inspired by beasts of Lore.” “Easy Beatles - Mellow covers of Lennon/McCartney favorites” (as opposed to Starr/Harrison favorites?) “Celtic Fusion Spirit” - I am not making this up - “Traditional sounds with a pop twist.”
I was at a complete loss, as usual. I am an album (as opposed to a singles) guy, and it seems like less and less albums come with ten or fewer tracks these days. I end up with an random mix culled from a freeform drift of musical memories- a couple of Moody Blues hits from an album a beloved, departed high school teacher gave me when I was 18, a couple of favorite tracks from mix tapes my brother made for me, a few from songs that were big hits on MTV during the brief time I watched it routinely (note for any kids who might have stumbled across this - MTV used to play music videos).
The hated 30 second preview persists, though it is at least slightly more justified by Napster’s position as a purveyor of an unlimited streaming subscription model (giving away the milk for free and so forth). Other features are less excusable. There is no track or album pricing without actually going into a purchase window (and, I discover taking a second look after my coupon is used up, they will not even give this up without entering actual payment information). Let’s just get this straight: this is a store that won't tell you what any of its merchandise costs until you give them a credit card to hold on to. What the fuck, do they want to make sure you’re serious? There’s nothing special about the price points you encounter - $.99 and $1.29 were all I saw - so what’s the big secret? It’s an inexplicable, irritating, low rent move that mystifies coming from a retail giant like Best Buy.
But the real and final criticisms actually pushes into truly intolerable territory. Napster’s download manager app isn’t available for the Mac. I can accept this - it’s idiotic, but still commonplace enough, and it isn’t like downloading the tracks one by one off the web interface is that much of a chore. But when I did - in complete defiance of all my experience - fully three tracks did not download. When I returned to my track listing, inexplicably more than half were not listed as downloaded. I retried my missing tracks. Two showed up, but the last one vanished into the ether - but was nevertheless marked as downloaded. A complete loss.
I’m not about to pursue some sort of customer service experience with Napster over a single song I bought with Coca Cola bottle tops, but seriously, what the fuck? Basically there is no excuse for that. I can’t imagine actually breaking out the credit card for this uninspired service unless they dig up some kind of major innovation (and some Mac support).
Epilog... despite my Mac-ular issues with Napster, I suppose dropping a review of their store without so much as a link is a little cold. Behold, Napster 8.6, or something... And for all your next-decade nostalgia needs, you can review the original and all its progeny at its Internet Archive's Wayback Machine page. What a long strange trip etc.
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