It’s probably a preemptive strike with all of the cloud music services popping up and Apple’s entrance into this space almost assured, but Slacker is running a promotion for a free one-month subscription to their premium service. I’ve looked at Slacker before, but they’ve added some awesome features worth a revisit.
Subscription Music vs Cloud
Amazon, Google, and probably Apple’s “cloud” music services appear to be geared toward moving your existing library to their servers. This is inherently different than pure music subscription services like Rhapsody, Napster and MOG, where you rent music. Both give you access to music from the cloud, but the beauty of subscription is being able to instantly play something that is not in your library: a song, artist or album you want to hear on the spur of the moment.
There is a third type of online music service, although the lines are started to blur: Slacker and Pandora. These are the digital equivalent of FM radio. With FM radio, you don’t have direct control over what is played, but you can pick from a handful of stations that cater to your tastes, like Top 40, classic rock, country, etc. Think of Slacker/Pandora as radio with thousands of “stations.”
Cache is King
I believe that, most, if not all, of the online services also allow you to cache songs to your device so you don’t have to stream over the air. Not only does this save valuable data bandwidth, but it also makes these services useful on devices that only have WiFi, like an iPod Touch.
Slacker vs Pandora
Both Slacker and Pandora let you create an artist or song station; however, there is a big difference. Slacker “song” stations are actually artist-based. Pandora, by comparison, will try to play songs similar to the particular song. So if you pick a slow song from an artist that normally plays upbeat music, Slacker will likely play upbeat songs from similar artists. Pandora will play similar slow songs. In this respect, Pandora is superior.
On the other hand, Slacker appears to have a much larger catalog of music. (The website says 6 times more than their top competitor, who I assume is Pandora.) Slacker also features professionally programmed “genre stations.” According to the Slacker website, “Each station features a deep selection of music; hand-picked by Slacker DJs and includes breaking hits and top singles along with the very best deep tracks and more! Personalize them by rating the music you love, banning the songs and artists you don’t or use the Fine Tune settings to make them your own.”
I’ve always felt that the weakness of services like Rhapsody/Napster was their playlists, which is the strength of Slacker/Pandora. I’ve always thought that it would be great if Rhapsody or Napster acquired Slacker or Pandora, or vice versa. I guess Slacker with the Premium service is close to that.
Actually, I’ve always wondered why Billboard or American Top 40 has never partnered with one of the online services. Seems like a natural. Most of the songs on the top charts would be available. I’m sure it’s been explored and just is a matter of dollars and (no) sense.
Free vs Paid Service
Slacker/Pandora’s free service has some ads and you are limited to how many times you can skip a song. If you want unlimited skips and no ads, there is a Slacker Plus service that is only $3.99/month. Pandora has similar thing for $36/yr called Pandora One. If you want to play specific songs/artists–Pandora doesn’t do this–, you have to pony up for the Slacker Premium service for $9.99/month. This makes Slacker more like Rhapsody/Napster and is very exciting.
Fine Tuning Stations
The feature in Slacker that has really got me excited is the way you can fine tune the stations. There is an Artist Discovery setting where you can tailor how much you want other similar artists to play.
On an iPhone, to get to the Fine Tuning settings you have to be on a station page. Tap Menu, Edit Station, and finally Fine Tune. Now you can adjust how much you want other artists to play using the Artist Discovery setting. I also like the ability to set how popular a song has to be. You can also set the age of songs using the Year setting.
NOTE: It’s not obvious how to create a station from just a song. To do so, just play the song and when it’s done, it will be created automatically. If you can’t wait for it to end, tap the Next Track icon. To create an artist station, just search for the artist and tap the play button. The station is created immediately. However, as I stated earlier, with Slacker, there is really no musical difference between a song station and an artist station.
I’m still exploring the features of the Slacker player, but finding it more and more compelling. I find the extensive artist bios and album reviews really interesting. Lyrics are available for many songs.
One Month Free
For a limited time, Slacker is offering free access for a month to their premium service. All you have to do is go to their Facebook Fan page and sign up; no credit card required. Then go to Slacker.com/gift and use the gift code you will be given. Even if you miss the promotion, Slacker is absolutely worth $10 just to try out the premium features for a month.
What To Do?
Will I be dumping my Rhapsody account? Not yet. Rhapsody seems to have a bigger catalog and also allows me to download songs to my laptop and play music without Internet access–Slacker surprisingly doesn’t support PCs, only mobile devices.
I really like Pandora’s song-based stations and for just $36/year to be ad-free, it’s a no-brainer. I’m on the fence with Slacker since it is somewhat redundant with Rhapsody. I could possibly get away with the less expensive Slacker Plus service, but you need Premium to create custom playlists because that requires on-demand access to songs. I guess I’ll play with it for my free month and then see if I miss it. That will be the acid test.
Very good review of these music services. I’m always looking for a good way to explain these services to my friends and family; your succinct descriptions are spot on and easy to understand. I originally started using Rhapsody because it was available on inexpensive Sandisk mp3 players. I know that Slacker had a larger mobile player for its music, but is it available on smaller, non- Slacker mp3 players now? If I could get anytime access to Rhapsody, Pandora, and my personal music library on one ipod sized device, I’d be all over that.
I’m really enjoying my free Slacker Premium subscription. I’m finding they don’t have near the library of music that Rhapsody has, but their playlists and apps are SO much better. I wish the companies would merge :-) Rhapsody seems to be stuck in the past. Maybe Slacker’s entry into their turf will kick them in the butt and make them do something new.
Is there room in my budget for both? I dunno. I may just go with the $3.99 Plus service so I don’t have to listen to ads. Then I start thinking that for only $6 more I can have Premium–I guess that’s what they want us to think. LOL
I may take another look at Napster. They’ve got a $8/mo plan if you pay for a whole year. They are very similar to Rhapsody, but don’t allow you to actually download DRM’d music to your laptop for untethered listening. I see they’ve added Billboard charts which interests me a lot.
Glad you liked the post. Always nice to hear.