Music and Zune

I have been using my Zune for a few months now, and it has impressed me so much that I need to make a small commentary.

The first and most important thing I have to say is that once you get used to the Zune version 3.0 software, you will never go back to itunes. Microsoft has created an interface that is so much clearer and easier to use than that mess of boxes that Apple sticks with. Here I refer mostly to the respective marketplaces, but the main music user interface on Zune 3.0 still seems much more user-friendly.  You can arrange your music how you like it – by genre, artist, playlist, and so on.  Then you can sort artists, songs, and anything else, to your liking.  And it’s all so much easier than on itunes.

When you get into the marketplace to buy songs, Zune really outshines itunes.  Especially if you take advantage of Zune Pass, which I decided to do a few weeks ago.  The itunes store is a jumbled mess of information, in my opinion.  Zune marketplace breaks down genres, popular artists, and new releases in a nice clean format.  When you go to buy, Zune shows you the albums of the artist along the bottom of the screen and the songs in the center.  No mess to wade through.

Zune Pass has its detractors, but I love it so far.  You can now keep 10 songs per month and download as many as you like as long as you pay the monthly fee of 15 bucks.  I’ve found some great artists already that I either didn’t know existed, or just never got around to buying their album.  Zune is an awesome tool to discover new music and Zune Pass makes it even better.

So while I’m on the subject of new artists, I have to share a few I have discovered that I’ve taken an immediate liking to.

Conspirare:  Beautiful choral music.  If you like a real choir and really nice compositions, you really must check them out.

Anna Netrebko (with or without Rolando Villazon):  Amazing pipes on this woman.  She’s done a few things with Villazon which are also truly amazing, but she’s still very good on her own.

Army of Anyone:  I had no idea that a few guys from STP teamed up with Filter’s lead singer to form a supergroup.  Got to love the second song “Goodbye”- it’s a repeat listener for sure.

Kyuss:  I started listening to some of their stuff and wondered why I wasn’t listening years ago.  Good guitars, good vocals, and just different in a really good way.

Lacuna Coil:  Love them.  First heard their two songs on two Guitar Hero games and checked out their other stuff on Zune.  I could do without the guy screaming at times, but for the most part they have great melodies and guitar riffs.

Paramore:  I think their song on the Twilight soundtrack came up on the front page of marketplace one day and I liked it so I downloaded their album.  Surprisingly, not disappointing at all.

And finally, Shinedown:  These guys rock.  Heavy guitars and amazing vocals are a surefire recipe for success. It’s so fun discovering all these new artists that I never knew I liked.

The moral of this story is that Zune 3.0 and Marketplace are much better than itunes.  I know most people will scoff since they are attached at the hip to their iphones or their microscopic ipods that talk, but can you really justify using crappy software for a device you like?  I mean besides touchscreen, which is great if you don’t need any space to store your music, Zune offers players that are better than ipods.  (Again, in my opinion)  I’d say try out a buddy’s new Zune and see if you like it, but more importantly, download the software and play with it for a few days.  You just might become hooked.

Tags: Microsoft Zune, Zune Marketplace, Apple, ipod, itunes