Comes With Music in Nokia's all-you-can-eat music download service that allows you to get your hands on as much free music as you want. To put the service to the test, we've been building a library and with over six millions tunes to choose from there is something for everybody. We've reached the Letter V, see how we've been getting on...
When it comes to getting the most out of your music collection, being able to download and keep as much as you like is great. Comes With Music does that and what's more, we've now downloaded over 500 albums to prove it really works!
After a rather poor showing with the Letter U last week, we were kind of hoping that the Letter V may well be a little more accommodating on the 'bands beginning with' front as well as options on Comes With Music.
Things don't start out well with pre-teen daughter claiming that 'No one starts with V that I like' and she quickly passes the netbook over to teenage son, who seems to have pulled two rockers out of the hat – super-band fuelled by booze, Velvet Revolver and gnarly ol'frett-botherer Steve Vai.
Velvet Revolver seems to have brought together the very best and worst of 80s hair metal in a competition that can only ever be about egos. As if to prove it, they've only one album to their name, Contraband, and the band already seems to be in permanent meltdown. Time for Slash to start re-thinking his Snakepit anyone?
Steve Vai is one of those old-dinosaurs also from the metal 80s days who thinks a guitar has to be touched at speed constantly for fear that it will turn on him and devour his fingers. People seem to like it, including my son (for my shame) and he picks Flexible, Alive in Ultraworld and Passion and Warfare.
The Velvet Underground for people of my generation were the Andy Warhol house band and seem to have gone down in history as a band who's story was actually bigger than their music. So, it's no surprise that her in-doors sticks to safe water and opts for the couple of 'Best of' albums (such as The Velvet Underground : the Very Best Of... , as well as the 33 track Loaded: Fully Loaded Edition), as well as the more famous The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground & Nico.
Lady-of-the-house's second choice is Veruca Salt who had a cracking first album named after a line from an AC/DC song – American Thighs. Sadly, it's not on Comes With Music and we're left to pick only Eight Arms to Hold You from 1997, which doesn't have the same impact.
For my first choice I'm going out on a limb and guessing that The Valentine Six won't have too many options on Comes With Music and I'm right. Good job I've still got the old CDS. I have better luck with my second choice - The Violent Femmes.
The Violent Femmes are one of those bands who seem to have passed the mainstream by, even though tunes keep getting picked up by the advertising community quite often. A friend of mine reckons it's because of the name, you expect a whole lot more from a band called The Violent Femmes than three punk-ass white boys! Still, they're cracking live and have done some good albums. The Violent Femmes, 3 and Hallowed Ground. We'd suggest starting with Permanent Record: the Very Best Of... as it's got some belting stuff on there.
So, there we have it, Letter V throws up a curious assortment of bands from across the ages and we manage to bag a grand total of 13 new albums from Comes With Music.
Random Track: With little of no luck with Letter V, we decide to pick Mini Viva as our Random Track. This pop duo come from the song-writing powerhouse behind Girls Aloud and the management team from Spice Girls, so are they fantastic? Well, Left My Heart In Tokyo ticks all the disco boxes with even a few cliched Japanese effects in the background. No album yet – sadly!
Letter V: 13 albums downloaded
501 Comes With Music albums downloaded to date