Helium Music Manager 2009 Review

I have been a long-time user of MusicMatch Jukebox (even long after Yahoo got their grubby hands on it and DESROYED it) But due to its instability in Windows Vista and its SLOW ability to handle very large libraries, I have been on a never-ending quest to find a replacement that can even do HALF of what MMJB did.

Of course I tried Yahoo's replacement, but that was an absolute JOKE! I cannot stand the interface for the popular iTunes software. I think the only reason iTunes is so popular is because so many people have iPods and that is the software you are *supposed* to use for them. That and I do not like software that tries to change my files, or worse, convert them to their own proprietary format. And most of the music managers out there want to follow the iTunes formula. Till now, JRiver's Media Jukebox 12 was the closest I could get, but it was severely lacking in the tagging area and a few other features I liked, and still bogged down a lot with the large amount of music. All the other ones...well, they are not even worth mentioning....

Now Helium's Music Manager 2009, this one looks promising. It seems to be able to handle my large music library well, although it did bog down my computer during (and take quite a while to) importing my files.

The interface is clean and easy to navigate. There are MANY (and I mean MANY!) options for how you'd like to view your library. You can view by standards like album and artist, as well and a very unique "line all your album covers up and pick one" kind of interface. I like the freedom to set up my view style the way I want to look for the music, and I have plenty of options to do so here.

The integrated player is basic, but works. It even shows the embedded cover art, like MMJB does! Bravo! One feature I used A LOT in MMJB was convert, which is stupidly missing from most media management choices. Guess what? It's in Helium!

Now for my biggest concern....tagging. MusicMatch had the best tagger BAR NONE. Notice I said "had"...as in past tense. The amount of detail for the tags in Helium is astounding! It does embedded pictures, which I LOVE! That is the one feature I CANNOT live with out, but is completely overlooked in almost every piece of software I have used. It's here! And there is auto-tagging, too! The autotags can be configured via plugins for Amazon, etc.

All-in-all, everything that I needed finally looks to be in a single place again! I can't believe I actually found a program meets (and in my eyes, exceeds) MMJB. I give a strong congratulations to the Helium team for a job well done! I look forward to seeing what is to come in the future! Just 2 things I can hope for....don't let it become bloatware that bogs down, and please don't let some stupid, ignorant conglomerate (I am not naming Yahoo's name, everyone) come buy it and turn it into a pile of junk!

We've got a winner here, folks! Full, uncrippled trial version (30 days) to try it with your library and see what I mean. Give it a shot and see if you agree.