Rocking While I Work

I like to listen to tunes while I’m working. And my choice of tunes is often something I can play loud with lots of guitars and screaming!

I recently started using Lala and Napster to try out new music and they’re worth a mention here.

Lala

Lala is a combination streaming service and music store. You’ll need a computer to play music through the browser. It works fine on OmniWeb on OS X. When you create a free account you get 50 song “credits” with Lala. You can play any song on Lala once for free, but if you want to add it to your library (so you can play it any number of times), you’ll need to use a song credit.

You can also purchase songs in two ways. You can purchase a song to play only in the web browser for cheap (usually 10 cents or so). You can apply this cost to purchasing the MP3 of the song as well. If you only listen to music at your computer, it’s a great deal. You can buy 21st Century Breakdown for 90 cents!

I haven’t bought anything with Lala yet as I’m still using my 50 free credits. I like Lala’s web interface. It works pretty nicely and has a nice integrated player at the top of their pages.

Napster

This service has a long and varied history, but as of right now it is also a combination streaming service and music store. They recently started a new $5/month plan where you can listen to an unlimited number of files via streaming and get a credit to download 5 songs as MP3 files (which are unprotected and will play on an iPod). I signed up for 3 months at $15 and got 5 free songs. So now I can download 20 songs within the next three months and listen to whatever I want online during that time.

Napster’s web interface is pretty lame. It has a popup player, which is annoying, searches are slow and it doesn’t seem to work all that well in Omniweb, so I have to use Firefox.

But still, at $5/month it’s a bargain and more than worth it. If you buy any music at all, it pays for itself and you get to listen to whatever you want as a stream. The Apple iTunes Store should really do something like this.

Stuff I’m Listening To

And now, here’s some stuff I’m listening to these days:

Spellbound by Lacuna Coil (From Shallow Life)
I bought the whole album, but his is by far the best song on it.

No Surprise by Daughtry (the single)
I haven’t yet bought this, but I listen to it on Lala and Napster.

Sober by Pink (from Funhouse)
I don’t own any Pink albums but some of her songs are just so catchy I have to purchase them.

Careless Whisper by Seether (from Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces)
I loved the original by Wham, even though it doesn’t have any loud guitars or screaming. This version by Seether adds what was missing.

Nightmare by Crooked X (from Crooked X)
I first heard this song as a Rock Band bonus track.

A Touch of Evil by Judas Priest (from Painkiller)
This is not a new song, but I’ve recently been listening to it a lot.

The Sound of Madness by Shinedown
This is one of my favorite albums from the past year. It came out last summer, but I’m still listening to it a lot. The entire album is great, but I especially like the title track and What a Shame.

21st Century Breakdown by Green Day
The entire album is fabulous. In particular I like the title track, Easy Jesus Nowhere, Restless Heart Syndrome, The Static Age and 21 Guns. But all the songs are great!

The High End of Low by Marilyn Manson
This album came out today, so I’m just listening to it now (on Lala).