imeem

I've been meaning for a while to pimp imeem, an online music service I've been listening to for a couple months. To describe it, the best analogy I can think of is that it's a hybrid of iTunes and MySpace. Users upload mp3's of songs, and then anyone can stream them or even buy them. If you're a registered member, you can also create your own playlists. In addition to this, there's a whole social networking side to the site. I'm not really into networking online, so to be honest, I haven't really played with the features. My guess is that it's similar to MySpace. However that works.

I should also add that part of my affection for this site stems from the fact that one of the first songs I looked for and found was "Vindaloo" by Fat Les, which I haven't been able to find on any of the major services. I like it because it's one of my favorite soccer songs, and it brings back fond memories of Anne and my time in England during the 2002 World Cup. That said, I logged in recently, and I could only listen to a 30 second sample of this song (see more below). I'll assume that the reason I can't listen to it in its entirety is because I'm not in North America right now. If I get back to the US, and still can't listen to the song in its entirety, I may have to rethink this review.

One interesting feature of this service is that you can basically listen, on demand, to any song that's been uploaded. As far as I understand, this contradicts the traditional model for online music (and both terrestrial and online radio) where the listener can't have the ability to predict what will be played at a specific time. (This is why DJ's will often say something like "Coming up, we have the new one from Santogold" while being deliberately cagey about when s/he'll actually play it.) This is also part of why you can't choose a specific song on Pandora.

imeem somehow gets around this by only allowing listeners to stream 30-second samples of some songs. Whether or not a full length version of a song is available depends on an interpretation of copyright law that I don't really understand. (You can, of course, listen to full versions of any songs you personally have uploaded.) However, in my experience (at least my experience before coming to Sweden), most songs seem to be unlocked and you can listen to the whole thing.

Aside from the issue of incomplete songs, I need to give one warning to potential users of imeem, the significance of which will probably vary depending on your personal preferences. The warning is that, from a design standpoint, the site is absolute ass. I'm sure you're familiar with how butt-ugly MySpace can be; well imeem seems to follow the same design principles. That is, it has none. There's no standardization in the design, except that all the things you expect to find like the controls, recommended tracks, and comments do tend to be in the same place on every page. But they all float ethereally above a user-selected background that is invariably made up of hundreds of tiny, moving bits. You also have to deal with ads of the "Someone in Poultney has the hots for you!" variety, but you're probably used to ignoring such impositions by now. At least I hope you are. (One funny side note, lately I've been seeing the same low-budget ads, but they're all in Swedish. Någon i Stockholm älskar mig? Jattebra!)

The visual experience of any given page will vary from one track to the next, although you can probably guarantee that it will be ugly, visually distracting, and have little or no relation to the music being played. I once listed to a playlist on a page that had a creepy vampire's head at the top. The head was partially concealed by shadows, and it would move about and flash it's teeth in a roughly ten-second cycle. The band featured in this particular playlist: REM. Because nothing makes me think of vampires (or vampyrs, perhaps) like "Radio Free Europe."

So with that warning, I encourage you to check it out. I think the main benefit of this site is it's on-demand feature. If you have a song stuck in your head and you need to hear it, this is the place to go. Or if you want to preview an album before going out and buying it, chances are someone has already put together a playlist of the whole thing. I think the site definitely has its merits, especially if you can let it run (hidden) in the background while you're working. Just try not to look at it for too long because it's guaranteed to give you a headache and make your eyes bleed.

I mentioned Pandora earlier, which reminds me to pimp an application that my friend JT turned me on to. It's called PandoraJam, and it lets you access Pandora in a separate application instead of using your browser. The coolest feature is that it will automatically save to your hard drive all of the songs it plays. The quality is only ok (64 kbs), but the music is free after all. You have to buy a license to get unlimited downloads, but the unregistered version will work in 10-15 songs stretches at a time. And the best thing about PandoraJam ... ? It only works on a Mac.

Sorry, I know I've promised I wouldn't let this blog go there.