Comes With Music is part of Nokia Music’s strategy for world domination, offering an all-you-can-eat music download service. With well over 6 million tracks to choose from, it’s well on its way to being the best resource for digital music anywhere. All you need is a Nokia XpressMusic phone (we’ve got the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic) and a Comes With Music account. We’ve been using the service to build a music library like no other and have reached the Letter S – see how we’ve been getting on…

We’ve reached the Letter S in our A-Z rundown of getting to grips with Comes With Musicand we’re hoping for a good haul of music as we’ve come pre-armed with some top artists!

Pre-teen daughter has had something of a poor showing with Comes With Music of late, largely as many of the acts she likes simply don’t have albums, merely singles to their credit. That’s all about to change with Letter S as she’s lined up a few crackers.

Jordin Sparks first came to our attention the other week, when we pulled up her name for Random Album for Letter P (Pop). Since then, daughter of mine has taken a shine and not only listened to the Battlefield album but also adds the Jordin Sparks album to her list. This shows how versatile Comes With Music can be, letting you discover acts you may otherwise have looked over.

Next up is the mighty Britney Spears. Her breakdowns are as much a part of this star as her music, so it’s only fitting Piece of Me and Blackout are on Comes With Music, as well as the most recent Circus. However, it the Ooops! I Did it Again, Baby One More Time and event the Greatest Hits that will no doubt be the most popular choices.

Taylor Swift is an American singer who seems to have come to prominence in our house because she sings the song ‘Crazier’ on the Hanana Montana The Movie soundtrack. Daughter claims it’s ‘Really Good!’ which is reason enough for checking out and adding Fearless and Taylor Swift, the Album to her list.

All this sugar and spice is in complete contrast to what we have next, proving that boys are really made from, sweat, angst and noise!

Thrash metal seems to be the theme of the day for the teenage boy of the house, as his first selection is Slipknot. Funny masks and too much blood in the videos aside, they seem to play for much the angst card that seems common with metal these days. So, adding to the Comes With Music library we find All Hope is Gone, Vol 3. the Subliminal Verses and Iowa.

One of the longest lasting thrash metal bands is certainly Slayer. Never gaining the mass appeal like Metallica, they seem to have stayed very much a cult following. Comes With Music has a wealth of albums, so teenage-boy decides to bag Christ Illusion, South of Heaven and Divine Intervention before making a note to come back for more later.

His favourite band, however, take the metal genre and nicely subvert it from within, making politics sit comfortably alongside surreal concepts and even the standard teenage angst feel all the more rational. We’re talking System Of A Down, of course, and while the band seem to have lost some of their edge in recent times, there is no denying the potency of System Of A Down, Toxicity and even Steal This Album.

Boy seems to have taken a healthy clutch of albums away with him, so am hoping for the same thing when it comes to my choices. I’ve decided to go alt-country for my choices, picking out Smog, Silver Jews and Sixteen Horsepower to see how Comes With Music fairs with.

Sadly, it seems I’m in for a bad day’s haul, as Silver Jews don’t even register on Comes With Music and when I look for Smog, the work of one man maverick Bill Callahan, there is simply one single 37 Pushups. Even the more recent work under his own name is missing. There is a gap here on Comes With Music that needs taking care of!

I have a little more success with my third choice, but not much more. Sixteen Horsepower may no longer be around but they were a band that seemed to play a large influence on the latest nu-folk and Americana coming out of the States. Comes With Music has three albums on offer but misses most of their more influential work completely. Instead, we find Hoarse, which is a life album and has some great versions of their earlier works on there. Low Estate is something of a mixed album, which the eponymously named Sixteen Horsepower is a six track sampler album.

The lady of the house is here to bring the proceedings to a more Indie-Pop-tastic conclusion, as she’s lined up The Smiths, Shed Seven and even Snow Patrol.

The Smiths changed music forever, and no other band seems to have influenced other musicians and music lovers more. Just look at how many bands have been named after Smiths songs, from Shakespeare’s Sister, to Pretty Girls Make Graves, to the more recent Girlfriend in a Coma. It’s such a pity then that Comes With Music does offer the full back catalogue, instead opting for a number of compilations.

Louder Than Bombs and The World Won’t Listen are great compilations from years ago and manage to mix most of the singles with some pretty amazing B-sides. Then there is the more recent the Sound of The Smiths, 45 re-mastered tracks that is a fantastic place to start if you’re new to the band.

If you like The Killers early stuff then you need to check out Shed Seven, as the bands seem to have an amazing number of similarities going on, even though Shed Seven came from York and the Killers claim the US west coast as home! Comes With Music hasn’t got the full catalogue, missing out the early albums. However, it does have Shed Seven, The Singles Collection pulls together 39 top tunes that really get to grips with the career of this band. For measure, we also add Live At The BBC and Let it Ride, the sole official album offering on Comes With Music.

Snow Patrol have had some amazing success in recent years. They seem to have lost their more frenetic edge for years ago, when first saw them destined to a life as permanent support act. However, the slower and moodier, The Final Straw put an end to that. Her indoors also likes Eyes Open and adds that one, as well as A Hundred Million Suns.

Random Album: Carrying on our musical experiments we turn our attention to Soundtracks and the Editor’s Pick on Comes With Music is the Public Enemies Soundtrack by Elliot Goldenthal. We were expecting something moody reflecting the albums gangster undertones but the album manages to mix 1920’s jazz with a host of different styles.   

Letter S: 31 albums downloaded
451 Comes With Music albums downloaded to date