Mad Rantz

I really do love Napster. I have been using it for about a year now to stream tunes to my various locations, and it has definitely altered my listening habits. I find myself much more likely to just try some new band out, and I find their suggestions pretty useful, especially when I am listening to a band I like and they suggest other similar tuneage.

Yesterday I found a really interesting band called Mastodon. It’s a little hard for me to describe their sound. It’s sort of a mish-mash of influences, including thrash metal, punk, jazz, and a touch of southern rock thrown in for good measure. I’ve been listening to their album Leviathan over and over again. It is a sort of concept album apparently (best I can tell from the song titles), but in a good way. I find several of their songs of the sort where you just want the song to not end as they just jam away. Lotsa notes at times, and that in this case is a good thing.

Napster

I’ve been using the new (and legal) Napster service the last month or two, and so far I’m pretty happy. I get access to a fairly decent catalog of tunes for $10/month, and if I really wanted I could burn the tracks for $1/each like you can with iTunes. I’ve found that I really could give two shits about having the physical media. I just want access to my tunes from my computer for the most part, and the ability to dump some to my MP3 player if I want to hear something while I’m biking or doing some other sort of away-from-the-computer-type activity.

Nothingface

One of the most useful aspects of having access to a large music catalog is that I get to try out music that I likely never would have by simply listening to the radio. Napster has some nice features that I’ve been using regularly lately that help facilitate finding new tunes. The first is a large list of “radio” playlists that you can choose from. I’ve been spending a lot of time listening to their “Damage” playlist, which seems apropos as I tend to like listening to heavier rock/metal, and as a bonus there is no doubt that I am a bit damaged.

The second feature I really enjoy is the recommended artists list they show when you are listening to an album. This feature even moreso than the “radio” lists has led me to some interesting tunes, including a five-year-old album by Nothingface. How the fuck did I miss these guys five years ago? They also apparently have a newer album released in 2003 that is not on Napster, which makes me sad, but I liked the album from 2000 so much that I believe I will go out and actually purchase both CDs very soon now.