Musicmatch is one of several music playback programs for PCs, along with offerings from Microsoft, Real, Apple. With a good multimedia sound system -- I'm working on reviews of THX systems from Klipsch and Logitech -- you can use these programs to listen to music at your PC. The programs also allow you to transfer music to portable devices, or stream music around your house with various add-on gadgets (though access to copy-protected music is usually not available in that scenario). The programs now also offer access to online music stores for purchasing music (by track or by album) or renting it (subscription access to the entire library).
Musicmatch 10 is now out, and by combining their On-Demand subscription service with the remarkable new iteration of their AutoDJ feature, you almost end up with a new way to listen to music. I'm sure I'm leaving a few things out, but here's my hierarchy of music listening options:
- Terrestrial Radio - several programmed channels in broad commercial categories
- Satellite Radio - dozens or hundreds of programmed channels grouped by mood, genre, or programmer's taste including a few relatively obscure niches
- Internet Radio - thousands of programmed channels grouped by any number of categories including geography, but difficult to quickly scan through the options
- CD - 10 - 20 songs pre-grouped together you purchase
- CD jukebox - multiple CDs you have purchased, but difficult/slow to jump to individual songs or create playlists
- MP3 CD/DVD - more songs you've chosen dumped on to a single disc. Shuffle mode works well, but playlists are generally not possible.
- MP3 library (on PC or portable MP3 player) - enormous library of songs and albums you've chosen. To manage the volume, can create playlists, play music by category (artists, genre, etc.), or shuffle mode.
- Online music subscription - the equivalent of an even larger MP3 library. Like online music stores, there are various ways of drilling down through the library for music discovery.
Musicmatch's new OnDemand AutoDJ combines the best of having a large library of music files that you own with access to a subscription library. It automatically creating playlists combining music it selects from your MP3 library with music it selects from the OnDemand library based on some fairly simple inputs. You provide a quick list of artists (you drag and drop a few songs into the list to give it a starting point), it does the rest. In my experience, it managed to create surprisingly good playlists of songs I wanted to hear, songs I didn't know I wanted to hear, and songs I'd never heard before but have now added to my rotation. And this was with a fairly eclectic mix - movie score music (Elfman, Williams), blues rock (Delbert McClinton, Kenny Wayne Shepherd), Top 10 women-power pop (Kylie, Britney, Dido), and 70's singer/songwriter rock (Jackson Browne, JT). I didn't ask for Rolling Stones or Dire Straights, but it knew! It knew! Simple slider controls are provided for controlling the mix of your library with OnDemand, and how popular/obscure you want the selections to be. Fabulous stuff.
[Update: Subsequent playlists also gave me a lot of Bob Dylan. There should be a way to tag stuff you don't ever want to hear again, and it should learn from every time you hit the "track skip" button...]
Musicmatch admits that OnDemand users actually end up buying more paid downloads (to be able to move to a portable player, or just for permanence). They can't prove a causal relationship - it's possible that subscribers are simply more likely to pay for anything. Still, from my experience you can make a reasonable argument that subscription services are basically giant music discovery services.
-avi
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