For about 4 years now, I have had a premium membership with Napster (no, not the Napster that you remember from college…:)).  My $15-odd dollars a month granted me access to millions of songs that I could stream over the internet, or download for quicker playback on up to 3 personal computers.  Additionally, I could sync tracks to an MP3 player (up to 3 of them), allowing me to take my music on the road…it only required an annoying license-refresher-sync every month or so.

This worked pretty well for me for a long time.  I was too cheap to buy an iPod, , so the 5GB (?) Creative Zen that I mooched off my little brother was the perfect fit.  Then it broke (sorry Jared).  And then Vista started hating the Napster software.  And then all my favorite songs started showing up as only available in 30-second clips.  And then I got my iPhone which, of course, isn’t compatible with most of ANYTHING that Napster does.  It was time for a change.

So the other night I came across on article on Mashable about the launch of a brand-spanking-new app, a gateway app to the MOG music service.

Well, this was the first I had ever heard of MOG, so I decided to check it out.  After quickly glancing at the features it offers, I was hooked.  I dumped Napster and signed up.  Here’s what I get for $10 a month:

  • Commercial-free streaming of songs that I pick, not the garbage that Pandora thinks I will like (when I enter “Kenny Rogers” I DO NOT want to hear Kenny Chesney!!!)
  • Songs are downloadable to your iPhone/Pod/Pad/Droid, so you can take them offline with you.
  • If you feel lucky, you can select a custom ratio of “play the artist that I told you to” to “okay, play some artists that might be similar”
  • You can “favorite” songs for easy playback if you don’t feel like downloading them
  • Sweet 256Kbps playback…very nice

The one downside of this service is that currently the iPhone app is only enabled in iOS4 to deliver high-res album cover art.  So no multi-tasking, but high-res album art?  That’s some misplaced priorities.  However, I trust that this will be remedied soon.  Once this major oversight is cleared up, it is quite unlikely that I’ll ever be bothered by Pandora’s annoying ads ever again.

If you’re on MOG, or just bored, look me up 🙂