So, I was reading my Paste magazine a couple of weeks ago (and no, that’s not some kind of a porn mag – it’s a music magazine). One of the articles mentioned this “Slacker” portable music device. As some of you may know, I loves me some music, and any chance I can get to find new outlets, software, or systems that support great (and new) music, I tend to get interested.
Anyway, the magazine gave the Slacker high marks, so I decided to do some research. Folks, this music player is out of this world! Let me back up for one second. First, let me talk about the Slacker music site – it’s similar to I-Tunes, in that you can create a music library. It has a bunch of pre-created stations ranging from country, to rock, to folk, rap, heavy metal, standards …what I’m trying to say, it’s got a pretty good selection. Now, here’s the difference. You can play these stations, and rate that you either love or hate a song. If you hate a song, the station will never play that song again on your “site.” Basically, this means that it slowly customizes stations to your liking.
Another great feature is that you can create your own stations, with only the artists you want to hear. How cool is that? Obviously, I’ve already created a Rolling Stones, Electric Six, and new-alternative station. I even created a Madonna station for my wife. Again, it’ll play songs from these groups, and if you really like a song, you can vote to have it play more often, and if you really hate a song, you can have it “banned” from your custom station!
So, you can download this software to your computer, but you can also log onto Slacker at any computer and put in your username and password – it will “remember” the stations you created, and you can listen to them at any computer – how cool is that? And sadly, no, they aren’t paying me for this.
It gets better - Slacker created a portable player that you can download these stations to, in addition to adding MP3’s like a traditional MP3 player. What you do, is you plug in the portable player to your computer (or any WiFi access point), and you “load” the stations onto your Slacker. The Slacker will download something like 100 songs per station onto your player – you can refresh this every time you plug in the Slacker – so, the player will continually add new music to your player. Plus, you can vote on whether you like or hate a song just like you could on the website.
Best of all, the basic service is free … and for a free service, it is damn good! There is a premium service in which you get to skip an unlimited number of songs, make a music request to the “station,” and download songs you like from the station to your player – all for $7.99 a month – not too shabby.
Oh, I forgot to mention – the player has this huge video screen which gives information on the song, group, and album – even displaying the album art. It’s really innovative … something I-Tunes should probably jump on, eventually. Check out the site – www.slacker.com. At least, download the free player – you’ll thank me later!
