The barrage of inventions and technologies zipping past consumers these days can leave even the most ardent techies a little punch drunk. Dozens of similar computers, cell phones, TVs and Web sites swirl around our brains until they’re ready to burst open “Scanners”-style. And then along comes an invention that reminds us once again why we love technology - an invention like Lala.
Despite the heavy doses of skepticism I brought to lala.com, it only took me about five minutes to get hooked. Now I want to stand on rooftops and sing its praises to the world. It’s right up there with Pandora as one of the best music sites on the Web. And it’s 100-percent advertising free. Here’s how it works: users sign up for an account (by entering name, email and password - that’s it) and then browse Lala’s inventory of songs. You can listen to each song or album on Lala the whole way through (not just a 30-second snippet) one time at no cost. After that, you can either download a DRM-free MP3 for around 89 cents (prices fluctuate a bit) or add the song to your Lala Web library for only 10 cents. This is where Lala does something truly innovative. Once you add a song to your library, you can play it as many times as you want on the site’s integrated media player (and, should you eventually decide to buy the MP3, Lala will even subtract 10 cents from the cost). The best part: Lala gives you your first 50 songs free.
So the catch must be the music, right? A lot of cool music sites have come and gone because they failed to deliver the tunes. But Lala has that covered too. All four major labels (EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner) have agreements with Lala to stream and sell music, and so do 170,000 other independent labels and distributors. This means you can find the albums Elliott Smith made for DreamWorks alongside “From a Basement on a Hill” (Epitaph) and “Roman Candle” (Cavity Search Records). Other random searches of Lala’s over 6 million tunes turned up 161 songs featuring Jay-Z, 428 songs from The Clash, and 386 songs with Sam Cooke. And there’s no shortage of new titles either. I found Kings of Leon’s latest album “Only by the Night”, Q-Tip’s recent “The Renaissance”, and Lala has over 50 new releases from just this past Tuesday (including an album of Vanilla Ice covering hip-hop classics like “Baby Got Back” and “Fight the Power”). Lala discounts albums too. So, for example, you can purchase The Notorious B.I.G.’s 2-disc “Life After Death” (24 songs) for only 96 cents.
With Lala, an individual has access to their music library anywhere the Web is – at home, at work, at a friend’s, wherever. For a society that’s constantly connected, the service makes absolute sense; this is downloadable music for the Internet crowd rather than the iPod crowd. The Lala music player works just fine (with quick download times and an optional shuffle mode) and it also keeps playing no matter where you go on the site (something iTunes hasn’t quite figured out).Users can even transfer music from their personal libraries to Lala and play songs anywhere and anytime with no additional fees - supposedly a tough concession for the record companies to make. But label bigwigs shouldn’t fret; I liked the Kings of Leon and Q-Tip albums I listened to on Lala so much, I actually purchased the CDs. While I keep looking for some sort of downside or loophole with Lala, I can’t seem to find one – it’s a genuinely useful, entertaining and addictive site. And in the overloaded world of personal tech, that’s something to get excited about.
Check out Lala and get 50 free songs.
