Unfortunately, there are some products we use that have holes in them that their maker simply can’t fill (for business or technological reasons). Right now the music subscription services are in that situation. In comparing them recently I found that Rhapsody and Napster both claim over 3 million songs in their libraries but both have small (and not-so-small) omissions. I understand the logic behind what’s missing in some cases (Beatles, Zeppelin, etc.) but there are some smaller missing pieces that confuse me especially when the songs seem pretty minor and the other service has them. For better or worse these little landmines are a fact of these services right now.

For me Rhapsody is providing enough value that it’s worth it even with the missing songs. And if I have a playlist where I want that one final song that they don’t have in their catalog, I can rip my own CD and drag the track from the hard drive into the playlist so the playlist is complete. Great! Except for one small problem. The playlist I created is now a “local playlist” — it no longer roams. This sucks. Roaming is simply what I expect from all of my software. In this day and age I NEVER want my data to be tied to one particular machine if at all possible. Rhapsody does the smart thing by roaming my playlists, but then drops the ball at the 1 yard line.

I was thinking about this problem and it occurred to me that Rhapsody could keep roaming the playlist and rely on my to hook up the pointer to my mp3 on each machine. But then I thought, why even require that? Why doesn’t Rhapsody sync my local music files along with my playlists. Then I can fill in the blanks with my CD collection and make Rhapsody (cloose to) complete for my music listening needs. If the cost of roaming all these files is a concern, local track roaming could happen P2P between my machines. (Or charge for it as a premium feature. I’d pay!) I imagine there’s some fear about providing a service that roams potentially unpaid for copyrighted material. But Rhapsody isn’t about sharing per se. The feature I want just makes it so that I can make my playlist perfect, because, really, how can I listen to my Art/Progressive Rock of the 1970’s playlist without Misty Mountain Hop?

And note: (while not entirely analogous) it is possible when providing the workaround to come to some agreement with the copyright holders if they complain.

(And one more thing while I’m at it? Why don’t all music players provide the iTunes cross-fade feature between songs. I’m not a fan of the pause.)