I’ve been using FineTune.com for on-line music for a long time now. I’ve found it to be be all I need to get through my day. At FineTune you pick songs to add to your pool (playlist) and then it plays back those songs in random order. You never know what song is going to play next, but you know it’ll be a song you picked. Nutsie, on the other hand, takes a different approach and lets you bring your own music collection on-line.

I heard about Nutsie when drummer Duff McKagan was on a local radio show. He was pimping the service, which I believe he invested in (and also adorns the home page) so I figured I’d give it a try. Nutsie expects you to be using iTunes. Now one might see this is a narrow strategy, but these days iTunes is probably a safe bet. Unlike some other services, Nutsie doesn’t want you to upload your MP3s, it only wants your iTunes database. All you need to do with Nutside is export your iTunes library and upload it. Nutsie then does all the work to find the songs so you can listen on-line.

It’s actually a nifty concept but I’ve found it has one fatal flaw - it exposes you to all the crappy music you have in your library. If you’re like me, you’ve ripped just about every CD you have and also any CD that you might even only be remotely interested in. In my catalog there is a lot of classical, a lot of movie scores/sounndtracks, and a lot of country thanks to the wife - and most of that is not stuff I listen to all that often. Nutsie, unfortunately, reminds me that my library has about 70% of crap, 20% of good stuff, and 10% of, “when did I get that song?”

Another flaw in Nutsie is the lack of making playlists within Nutsie. Chances are you have playlists within iTunes. Well, when you upload your library Nutsie retains these playlists but doesn’t let you create new ones with your music. So if want to create your “Ultimate Death Metal” playlist in Nutsie using your collection of songs, you’re out of luck. You also can’t play any individual song with Nutsie. Much like all the other services, the site will play songs from your playlists randomly.

Another very annoying unfeature in Nutsie is the audio player itself. An embedded music player can be found on just about every page, including your personal playlist home page. This works great until you click a link on the page and takes you away, thus stopping your music and making you start all over again. One simple improvement Nutsie could add is to simply let you pop-out the player so you can navigate around Nutsie without disrupting your music. This even works against them because the always-present “Buy” button next to each song stops the music and just makes you mad. You’ll also find the music players start automagically, so just about every web page will start blaring out music when you arrive.

On the good side of Nutsie is the standard shared playlist abilities. Even if you don’t upload your own music library, you’ll find a good host of themed playlists that will keep you going for a while. They have a nice list of dated playlists so you can hear the Best Rock Songs of 1977 anytime you want (which I recommend). And assuming you’re a Nutsie member - which is free - you are allowed unlimited song skips. Where as places like FineTune and Pandora limit you to five skips per hour, Nutsie lets you skip forever if you want. Of course, you’ll need unlimited skips to get through all the crap in your personal library. For one session I actually did more skipping than listening.

And perhaps the most unique feature of Nutsie is the Nutsie Picks slider that appears above every music player. This lets you choose if you want Nutsie to recommend other songs and mix them while you’re listening. This doesn’t add songs to your playlist or library, it works on-the-fly. So if you have a playlist of 50 tunes and slide the Nutsie Picks to some percentage and it’ll toss in a few related artists and songs. Kind of nifty, but in my experience not all that “accurate” as you’ll find Barry Manilow and Rod Stewart dropped in the middle of your Glam Metal playlist.

I think Nutsie is working along the right path but has a long way to go. Design and user experience problems keep me from using the service, and its tendency to replay the same songs from my playlist over and over keeps me sitting at FineTune instead. I like the idea of just uploading my iTunes library and being able to listen anywhere I am, but until they give me more control over what is essentially my music, I’ll stick with my playlists at FineTune.