Rhapsody (review)

Streaming music services for personal use have rapidly grown in popularity over the last several years, particularly since the arrival of Spotify in the United States in 2011. Consumers with high-speed Inter net connection now have an array of options for subscription-based or ad-supported services that provide on-demand access to millions of tracks. In this crowded marketplace, Rhapsody often gets less attention because it lacks the market share of its “freemium” competitors Spotify and Rdio, as well as the cachet of celebrity-backed services such as Beats Music (founded by Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine) and Tidal (launched with much fanfare from Jay Z and other major musicians). Yet Rhapsody, which pioneered streaming music services back in 2001, has been growing its subscriber base in recent years and contains a number of features that make it an attractive option for music consumers. ¹

Subscriptions, Pricing, and Format

Rhapsody offers two types of subscriptions: unRadio ($4.99 per month), which provides personalized radio stations, and Rhapsody Premier ($9.99 per month), which allows unlimited access to Rhapsody’s catalog of 32 million songs. Unlike Spotify, Rdio, or Pandora, Rhapsody does not offer a free, ad-supported version; however, it does offer a 14-day free trial to new users. New users can sign up using an email address or their Facebook account.

Rhapsody is available on a variety of devices, but with certain limitations. Since the service is intended for individuals, not institutions, subscribers are allowed to stream music in only one location at a time. Subscribers can authorize up to three computers and three mobile devices to download music for offline playback. Downloaded tracks are playable only in a Rhapsody app, however, and will not be available to a user whose subscription lapses.

The browser-based version is cleanly designed, relatively simple to navigate, and available from any computer with broadband Internet access and an up-to-date browser. Immediately upon logging in, a user can look for music using the search bar, play one of the many albums or playlists featured on the home page, or select previously saved tracks in one’s My Music library. With a single click, albums or tracks can be added to the Mixer, which displays a list of tracks in the play queue. Users can easily edit this queue by removing unwanted selections or by dragging tracks to reorder. Clicking the Save as Playlist button allows users to add queued tracks to a new or existing playlist associated with their account.

The Rhapsody desktop app offers a similar user experience but with a few additional features, such as the ability to download tracks. It is easy to edit the queue of tracks in the Mixer without disrupting playback. But while the overall user experience of the current desktop app (version 6.12, as of this writing) is much improved from earlier versions, it no longer allows users to import personal libraries of non-Rhapsody audio files, which could be a serious limitation for some users. And since the desktop app is currently available only for PCs, Mac users are limited to use of the browser-based version, which is slightly less robust in functionality.

The mobile apps for iPhone and iPad are generally easy to use and offer about the same functionality as the browser-based version. Songs that are saved to a user’s library are easily accessible on other devices synced to the same account. The mobile apps also offer two features not available on a desktop: access to many live terrestrial or streaming radio stations from across the United States, and TrackMatch, a Shazam-like service which uses the device’s microphone to identify a song playing...