Lala is back, and while it's probably better than ever, it may not be good enough. Lala started out its life as a CD swapping service. But in a world of digital downloads, that's not much of a business model. Now Lala is back as an online music store - with a twist.

You can download albums or individual tracks of DRM-free music from Lala just as you can from iTunes or Amazon MP3. The company has worked out deals with all of the major labels plus a bunch of independent artists. So while not you might not be able to find every song you're looking for, there's plenty to choose from. Individual tracks run from around $.80 to $.99.

But here's what makes Lala different. The website features a built in music player. You can listen to any song on the site for free. Once. If you want to listen again, you have to pay $.10 for a "web song." You can then listen to that track any time you want from any internet connected device that can access the website. In other words, you can buy some albums for a buck or less, as long as you don't feel the need to download the music.

To get you started, all users get 50 free credits for web songs. So you can check out the service without paying a dime. You do need to register for an account, but you don't have to give up any credit card or PayPal information, so you won't accidentally buy something without knowing about it.

So far so good. But there are a few problems. First, the service is only available in the US. Second, while the downloaded tracks are DRM-free, the web tracks can only be listened to on Lala. If the company goes under next year and you've spent $100 on web songs, I doubt anyone's going to refund your money. Sure, you could download MP3 versions of all the songs. Your $.10 per song will go towar the purchase price. But that means you'd have to pay as much as $900 just to save backup copies of the songs you've already paid for in this hypothetical example.

Finally, there are plenty of other ways to listen to music online - for free. If you want to go the legal route, there are ad-supported services like MySpace Music. And if you don't care so much about legalities, there are services like SeeqPod. While Lala does offer a nice interface and a decent music library, it's hard to compete with free.

Music website Lala plans to launch a new music on demand service soon. While online radio sites like Pandora or Last.fm let provide a stream of audio tailored to your tastes, Lala's service will let you click on an individual song and listen to it. Currently that's only something you can do with subscription services like Rhapsody.

There's just one problem. It costs money to stream audio on demand. A lot more than internet radio stations have to pay to stream music, even if new royalty rates take effect this summer.

In order to offset the costs, Lala hopes to sell CDs through its service. The theory is that visitors to the site will be music fans who are willing to pay for the music they like. But the average user will have to buy one CD per month in order for Lala to break even, that just doesn't seem too likely.

[via TechCrunch]

Want some new CDs? Got some to get rid of? la la might be of some assistance. It's a web service that will hook you up with the CDs you want, in exchange for the CDs you want to rid yourself, and a dollar. It works like this: At the la la web site you enter the CDs you have and the CDs you want. When la la sees that you have a CD somebody else wants, and you agree to ship it, la la will send you prepaid mailing envelopes, and credit your account with one CD. Then, when la la sees that somebody else has a CD you want, they'll send it to you. While this might not seems like the best deal, consider how much money you're likely to get trading in your CDs at a used record store. While brand new albums are predictably rare on la la, if you're like me and constantly behind the curve when it comes to new music, or are constantly getting rid of old CDs, la la may be just what you're looking for. In addition to being good for trading CDs, la la has a social networking component and will recommend new music to you and introduce you to others with similar musical tastes.

[Thanks, David!]