Music Monday: MOG

I will be the first to admit that I have A LOT of music. My husband bought me a 32G iPod Touch for our first wedding anniversary, and if I put every song I own on it, it would probably be more than half full.

The biggest problem with being a music lover, though, is that you can spend a lot of money on albums and individual songs. Since I'm committed to supporting the artist who produces the music I love (and not stealing music off the internet), that means usually paying at least 99 cents a song on iTunes or Amazon MP3, unless I can score a $2.99 or $5 digital album on Amazon.

If you spend at least $10 a month on music downloads, you will love MOG. Until about a month ago, I had never heard of it. But my new boss, who is a crazy music lover like me, introduced me to it and I have been hooked ever since.

MOG is basically the same as Pandora, except that instead of being subjected to Pandora's random selection (check out this hilarious Onion article -- but beware of the swears), you can actually listen to entire albums or individual songs whenever you want. You get free music upon signing up, and then once your supply runs out (shown by a "fuel gauge" up at the top) you can earn more by adding favorite artists, creating playlists and inviting friends to use MOG.

The other thing that's unique about MOG? It's not just a radio station where you hope that your favorite Lumineers song comes back on once your station has made its inevitable loop full of Death Cab for Cutie singles (I had a friend who pointed out that every station he created somehow ended up playing their music). You can create a queue, like you do on YouTube, and pick songs you've never heard to determine whether you like a new artist or not -- or decide whether to buy their whole album.

While I have only been using the free version to see if I want to commit to it, I'm really tempted to upgrade to the basic version, which is just $5 and includes unlimited music downloads and listening on your computer. And if that's not enough, the primo version ($10 a month) includes unlimited downloads to your mobile phone so you can access your music anywhere. You can even stream it in your car via Bluetooth (if you have a new car, which I do not).

I was absolutely floored when my boss pulled out his iPhone, opened MOG, selected a James Taylor album to download and had all of the songs saved to his phone in less than a minute. No need to agonize over whether you really want to spend another $10 on an album or whether Amazon or iTunes might run a special later and you can score the album for $3 instead. BAM! You have a crazy amount of music at your fingertips.

So there you go. My out-of-the-blue testimonial for MOG. Now if only they would pay me to say this kind of stuff. :)

Have you ever used MOG? Do you subscribe to a music service like Spotify or MOG? I want to hear the good, the bad and the ugly so I know whether it's worth it to take the plunge.