The Bass Geek

Some quick thoughts about the new MySpace Music rollout:

• Decent selection, I suppose.  I was able to find the folks I initially looked for, and all of the music currently on MySpace shows up.  While this doesn’t include indie artists as part of the store, it at least puts them in the same place as the major label folks.
• How exactly to buy the music on MySpace music remains a little dodgy - there’s no section specifically for sales, so you have to just look and see what’s available (if anything) for each artist.
• Exchanging an interest in MySpace for major label songs seems to ensure that only major label interests will be catered to, so I don’t look for the indie freeze-out on the MySpace Music Store to end any time soon.
• The public profile playlists (viewable on your personal page) may be limited to ten songs, but you can add up to 100 on other playlists.  While this doesn’t help with portable music players (unless you’re on a permanent network connection), it does make a wide range of personalized music available for those willing to tolerate ads.  I’ll be interested to see if anybody will compromise and use this instead of pirating tracks.
• Audio fidelity is still an issue, but I suppose that’s to be expected with streaming tracks.
• This service is going to be a lifesaver when it comes to learning tracks - full streaming tracks available upon request make my life a lot easier.

New podcast is up, too - just not on MySpace Music.  Download it here or listen at the site or WFYI.