A Hopeful Review Of MSN Music
From the Washington Post’s Rob Pegoraro’s Personal Tech e-mail: “Since I reviewed Microsoft’s MSN Music two Sundays ago, the site had its official debut last Tuesday.
“Along with the loss of the phrase ‘preview release’ from the site, what’s new with it now? The bulk of the changes at MSN Music consist of various ways for potential buyers to get drawn into the site. As somebody who’s always enjoyed aimless browsing in record stores, I have no complaint with these added features:
– A presentation of Billboard magazine’s list of top-selling albums…
– A ‘Map of Music’ feature allows you to select a decade, then see cities highlighted on a map [see screenshot at right] that produced significant artists in that time…
– MSN Music’s ‘Listening Booth’ allows visitors to hear new albums in their entirety in reasonably high-quality streaming audio…
– Finally, a ‘Senior Year Hits’ link reveals the, um, dreck that ruled the airwaves back in the day…
“MSN Music is also now advertising its first big-ticket exclusive, AC/DC…
“Unfortunately, this debut says more about the self-destructive instincts of the music industry than anything else. The band’s work is only available as complete albums, not individual songs. I like these guys, but, honestly, ‘Back In Black’ is not Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ — you don’t have to listen to it in its entirety and in its exact order to appreciate it. The pricing of those albums, by the way, is also on the high side — $10.89 or $12.87 a pop. That doesn’t beat Amazon by much and vastly exceeds a used-CD store’s prices.
“Lastly, the previously U.S.-only site now has some international reach, open for business in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Belgium, Korea and Brazil through various partners…
“With all these changes, MSN Music still has its unfinished aspects (a catalogue that’s well short of the announced goal of 1 million tracks) and bugs (the ‘This type of document does not have a security certificate’ error message I get when I click the ‘music.msn.com’ link at the top of the site’s home page). I’ll keep testing this service, and at some point revisit it in my column…”
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