What service now is the streaming champion of the world? Pandora? Rhapsody? Rdio? Spotify? There’s certainly not any shortage of sites out there dedicated to the stream. Often, where one falls short another takes its place. The perpetual cycle of “newest and best” continues its inundating promises to consumers with always another download of yet another game changing company that’s supposedly going to blow your mind with how awesome and incredible the thing is going to be. That’s a long sentence and it’s redundant, cliché and the propensity of it in our lives is quite frankly getting on our nerves. So did we really need another streaming service in our music-loving arsenal? Apparently so, says Beats Music. It’s another streaming app that was launched yesterday to a field full of meh.
We’ll give it this much, the interface is pretty and mildly interesting to play with. The mobile device was certainly in mind when developing; and was simple enough for our two-drinks-in-tow attention to figure out without any short-fused frustration.
On launch Beats asks you a few questions after signing up; like who some of your favorite artists are, what genres you like, and even gives you the option to toss other genres into the muck where they belong. Easy enough and our attention grabbed.
Beats also gains a few Silver Star awards in our heart because of the first Hüsker Dü song choice, followed perfectly with a classic Pennywise tune to calm our past teenage woes. We warmed up a bit after that, but peaked when it didn’t really allow us to go any further with unfamiliar content.
Though there are some chances to experience and explore new music, it all seems very top 40 based. We spent a solid 5 or 6 minutes pounding on the next track icon and received artists in this annoying fashion: Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Rihanna, Maroon 5, Zedd, etc. etc. etc.
There wasn’t a single artist we haven’t heard of playing a single tune we haven’t already been drenched with for the past year. There’s supposedly a ‘human touch’ involved with their music acquisitions. Apparently that touch is clammy and wiped clean with money. Pay to play, we can only assume.
But here’s the real kicker: We only get to use the service free for the next 7…scratch that, 6 days before we have to shell out over $10 a month for something we can find online anyways. If you’re like us and a huge fan of using the opportunity cost method to figure out whether or not something is worth the coin, take this into consideration – that’s 1/3 of a tank of gas, 2, maybe 3 foot long sandwiches, a stack of party pizzas, one cube of hip-beer or a tiny bit of pot. If you’re out of gas, hungry or sober you understand how valuable those all can be at the right time.
Our take? Don’t bother. There are other services out there and the unfortunate timing for Beats makes them late to dinner with nothing to offer on the table. We’ve all settled into our own habits and honestly it’s a bitch to make us think that changing anything is good for us. We’re stubborn and unwilling to give our hard earned money to a company that thrives on selling over-priced listening headgear to wannabe producers. With no ‘free with advertisements’ option available on Beats, we’d just as easily keep using Spotify while cursing the changes in volume every time an overplayed commercial makes its way in.
Cursing over coin, always.
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