Comes With Music is Nokia’s own music subscription service that allows you to download as much music as you like for a year, or longer if you choose to extend the subscription. Currently, there are over six million tracks to choose from, and growing all the time, it’s a great way to build your own music library, which is precisely what we’ve been doing. So, why not check out what the Letter I has to offer on Comes With Music…

There are four of us in our house and music is pretty much a way of life, there is a stereo and guitar in almost every room. So, trying to build a large music collection with Nokia’s online Comes With Music service is more a labour of love than a chore.

We’ve reached the Letter I on our quest but it seems there aren’t too many bands or artists out there starting with I but after a bit of head scratching we managed to pull a list together long enough to try and test Comes With Music. The lady of the house seems to have been getting short-changed of late

Iggy Pop may be best known for singing Lust For Life, which was used in Trainspotting a few years back but he’ll always be known in our house as the maniac who front The Stooges. Sure, he’s bee doing some back car insurance ads of late, but he’s had a pretty impressive back catalogue of albums in his time and they’re all up on Comes With Music to get a hold of. As you would expect of a man with Iggy’s lifestyle, his albums can be a bit hit and miss, so it’s safe to start with the Best Of… before nabbing The Idiot, which we’re pretty sure was mostly written by David Bowie. Taking time to add TV Eye for some reason, the lady of the house proclaims she’s got enough Iggy and moves on to what seems to be a recurring theme – the 1980s!

Now, INXS were best known for two things, Michael Hutchence and Michael Hutchence’s hair! That’s that quite true, they also had Kick, an album that forever defined them as an 80s band. Weirdly, it’s not on Comes With Music, nor is there a Best of, which is odd in deed and something that Nokia should redress and soon! What is there includes Welcome to Wherever you Are, X and Switch, which has the band with a new singer so maybe not get played too often.

The youngest member of the family, my 12-year-old daughter has cried off getting involved with the Letter I as she’s not been able to think of anything. Whereas, teenage boy is more than happy as he types in Iron Maiden to find their entire back catalogue on Comes With Music. Making a note to come back and get them all at some point, he takes the advantage to grab Somewhere Back in Time, Piece of Mind and Matter of Life and Death (Lady of the house then adds Number of the Beast – their 1980s break through album funnily enough).

Incubus are another rock band but you wouldn’t think it with album titles such as S.C.I.E.N.C.E., Light Grenades or A Crow Left of the Murder, which all get added to the list. Not to be outdone, the first of my acts sounds like they should rock but are in fact an indie band – I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness. They’ve only had one album to date, Fear is on Our Side, which gets added to the download queue.

To try and lighten the mood a little the second of my choices is American nu-Folk singer, Iron and Wine, who has brought out quite a few albums on Sub Pop records, including one collaborating with Calexico. However, Comes With Music seems to have let us down, as there is only one album on there, The Shepherd’s Dog, which is a solid album but does little to expand our music library.

Not the greatest of treasure hauls, we’d have to admit. It seems that not only are there very few bands beginning with I but Comes With Music also has a few problems making sure that the bands that are there are properly covered.

RANDOM ALBUM: To prove the idea that having an all-you-can-eat policy really works with Comes With Music, we’ve also decided to download an album from a type of music we wouldn’t normally try. Latin Music is a good case in point but then when Enrique Iglesias pops up, my daughter is happy to claim this as her choice. Picking the Greatest Hits of Enrique Iglesias as the best one to get.

Letter I: 16 albums downloaded
209 Comes With Music albums downloaded to date