About this Google Music Thing

As we all now know, I have totally capitulated to Google.  And I love me some music.  So I was interested when I read that my new master was going to release a music search thingy.  Until I read more about it.  Then it made me sad.  Not as sad as the lack of folders in Evernote makes me.  But sad.

Partnering up with MySpace?  Are you kidding me.  Now that Geocites is gone, MySpace rules supreme as the most butt-ugly collection of bad web design on the internet.  Lala?  What about Tinky Winky and Po?  Pandora has been a favorite of mine for years, but even they did their part to screw up the internet recently by letting people litter their Facebook and Twitter feeds with 30-second song clips, and then acting like that was a good thing.

I’d rather hear Edward Scissorhands play a Jonas Brothers song on a chalkboard that listen to a 30-second clip of anything.  Is this 2009 or 1995?  Rhapsody?  It took me a decade to rid my computer of all the Real Networks bloatware.  No way am I going to get snared in that net again.

But being a good little Google minion, I had to check out its new baby.  So I dutifully searched for my new favorite band, the Wrinkle Neck Mules.

OK, nothing too horrifying there.

I clicked on the play button beside Medicine Bow.

And it played, via Lala.  Hmmm.  Cool, but I want to hear Lowlight, the biggest of my numerous Mules song-obsessions.  So like the internet-savvy cat I am, I clicked on the “More songs” link.  I got a list of 61 songs.  No Lowlight, but I found the incredibly wonderful Mecklenburg County.

And it  played too, not in a pop-up player like before, but in the player at the top of the Lala page.

OK, so what about the little sharing button up there.  In the name of all that is sacred, no clips please.  Let’s send this to my Facebook page and see what happens.

Damn, the song plays right there.  Now I’m starting to be impressed.  I just know there’s a catch.  Let’s look at the Lala help pages.

OK, now I get it.  You can listen once.  When I tried to play the song again from my Facebook page, I was confronted with the most horrifying thing.

A 30-second clip.  The horror.

Actually, it’s not all that bad.  If I can let all my Facebook friends hear the entirety of a song once, that’s still semi-cool.  I don’t know that I’ll do it a lot, but I may send a song or two along.  At the end of the day, this seems like a way for Google to capture a lot of the growing music search market, which it wants for ad-serving purposes, and for Lala and some of the other services to get (or more likely buy) a lot of exposure.

I’m not blown away by any means.  But it’s probably a worthwhile addition to our music sharing toolbox.