You’re no doubt familiar with Google image search and Google news and maybe even Google’s Froogle shopping search. Now comes Google music search. This one, I thought, is right up my alley. So I gave it a whirl by searching for “Springsteen.”

Okay, this was cool: “Land of Hope and Dreams” (otherwise known as *ahem* LOHAD) was the top result of any Springsteen song. But it also showed two songs titled “Springsteen,” one by Princess and one by Whitford. Interesting: I hadn’t heard of either one. Tell me more.

This was not so cool: Trying to find information about Princess, I click on the band’s name: I get pretty much the same information I got from the music search — a CD cover thumbnail — but with the added bonus of “buy me now!” links to music stores like iTunes, eMusic, and artistdirect.com. Whoa! I don’t even know what I’m looking at, what’s with rushing me to buy? So I click on “artist websites,” figuring I’ll get some band information. Nope: Princess Cruises, Princess Bride, Princess Mononoke. So I go back in my browser one step and click on the album title link in the search results. I get a list of tracks. Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. I click on a song title and get — no information, just “buy me now!” links to iTunes and eMusic.

A search for “Sinatra” fared only a little better: two of the three album results included links to reviews: one from Blender, one from Epinions. Now we’re on the right track. If we’re going to have a Google devoted to music, let’s do more than provide relentless sales links. Let’s get some actual information in there.

Someday, maybe Google music search will find its groove. I hope it does. For now, though, it’s back to the garage for a lot more practice.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 27th, 2005 at 9:49 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Springsteen.