Rhapsody.com is a music downloading site that offers users a choice of some four million tunes through subscription and pay for song options. They also have a free introductory membership that allows you to listen to 25 songs at no charge. The music available from Rhapsody is compatible with most mp3 players except for the iPod, which makes it the iTunes store's chief competitor. Rhapsody offers all the search capabilities you could hope for in a music download service, including Artist, Album and Song Name. If you don't know the song or artist, or if you just want to browse, you can search by genre. This service also offers interesting information about the albums and individual artists found on the site. Rhapsody comes with its own very easy to use integrated music player, which allows you to download and listen to music faster. Downloading tunes is likewise easy and requires only a few clicks of your mouse. If you subscribe, you can download as many songs as your heart desires for $12.99 a month, but these songs are tied to your computer. You cannot burn them or transfer them. For $14.99 a month, Rhapsody's "To Go" subscription allows you to transfer songs to your MP3 player, but they can only be played for as long as you subscribe. When you cancel your subscription those titles will no longer play. You can receive a 10 percent discount if you would like to purchase songs while your subscription is active. If you run into trouble, Rhapsody.com offers above-average help, with a searchable knowledge base of FAQs, a Getting Started Wizard and a community message board.

The biggest drawback to Rhapsody.com is that it is somewhat pricey and that it does not offer additional media like movies, television or audiobooks. Also, if you are not careful when installing the music player, RealPlayer, it aggressively assigns itself as your primary media player and places shortcuts everywhere on your computer. In other words, unless you spend extra time doing a custom install to limit RealPlayer's power (requiring lots of box un-checking) you will end up with Rhapsody's RealPlayer all over your computer and every other media player on your machine will automatically take a backseat to it. Other complaints include some initial bugginess with the Rhapsody To Go transfer feature, no "smart" playlists and no autosync of subscription-based downloads. Overall, though, if you are going to pay for music downloads, this is a service to check out.