Yahoo Lyrics is the first legal lyrics site ever. This is because the RIAA has made sure to stomp out music lyrics whenever they find them, via cease-and-desist letters — even sent when lyrics to non-RIAA songs are posted. This site is just an excuse to go after other lyric sites…

In fact, Yahoo Lyrics is the poorest lyrics site on the internet, and the least usable as well!

EvilLyrics  is much much MUCH MUCH MUCH better.  It is less effort, finds more results (instead of a pitiful few), and saves the lyrics to a TXT file on your harddrive as opposed to a useless JPG image of the lyrics.

Read on for my review, including testing lyrics for specific songs…

EvilLyrics has been meeting lyrical needs for years by auto-searching the grey-market lyrics sites on the web automatically as you listen to songs (in WMP, winamp, itunes, or whatever)…… http://www.evillabs.sk. And the results are in TEXT.

How does yahoo give you the results? As an image! So you can’t save the lyrics to a text file. You can’t use the lyrics to generate a karaoke file (i.e. to display the lyrics as they are sung). Not unless you are willing to retype the lyrics in their entirety.

No. Yahoo lyrics sucks. EvilLyrics rules.

I donated $50 to the author of the program (Marke Conta) because it was so great. EvilLyrics is how the lyrics to songs are displaed when I throw parties. It’s good stuff. EvilLyrics can display the lyrics as they are sung (timed display), and also send this display to Winamp’s Milkdrop plugin!! (which now comes with new versions of winamp)

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Now, let’s perform some tests to see which actually gets the lyrics better. I’ll use the songs that are playing in my random playlist, with a description of whether the lyrics were found. I will skip cover songs (lyrics are usually filed under the original artist) and instrumentals.

The results are clear — EvilLyrics works more, and Yahoo lyrics works less!
Here are songs that EvilLyrics could find the lyrics to, but Yahoo Lyrics could not:

The Doors – Break On Through To The Other Side. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO. C’mon Yahoo! This is popular!
Metallica – Battery. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO. (Yahoo has about 5 Metallica song lyrics)
Man Of La Mancha – Aldonza. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
Faith No More – Kindergarten. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO. (Yahoo has about 8 FNM song lyrics)
The Misfits – Angelfuck. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO. (Yahoo has only 3 Misfits songs, and only the new Misfits)
Testament – Reign Of Terror. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
NoFX – Radio. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO. (Yahoo has about 20 NoFX song lyrics.)
Voltaire – Irresponisible. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
American Lesion – Fate’s Cruel Hand. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
Weird Al Yankovich – I Can’t Watch This. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
All – Hooidge. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
S.O.D – Charlie Don’t Cheat. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
Sabbat – A Cautionary Tale. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
Christian Death – Cavity. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
Hellsing – Logos Naki World (an anime show theme). EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
Atari Teenage Riot – Ghostchase. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
Nailbomb – Guerrillas. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
Gwar – War Party. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
Descendents – Catalina. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
Victims Family – Homophobia. EvilLyrics=YES (3 attempts). Yahoo=NO.
Jimi Hendrix – Fire. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
D.R.I. – Nursing Home Blues. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
Screeching Weasel – Peter Brady. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
Voivod – Planet Hell. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
Kreator – Terrible Certainty. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=NO.
My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult – Hand In Hand. EvilLyrics=YES (2nd attempt). Yahoo=NO.

 

EvilLyrics isn’t magical. There are songs that it can’t find. But yahoo lyrics can’t find those songs either:

Celtic Frost – Primevil Rapture (rare demo). EvilLyrics=NO. Yahoo=NO.
KMFDM – Turn (very rare demo). EvilLyrics=NO. Yahoo=NO.
NoFX – Nothing But A Nightmare (Sorta). EvilLyrics=NO. Yahoo=NO.
D.O.A. – Earache. EvilLyrics=NO. Yahoo=NO. (New D.O.A. lyrics are always hard to find.)
Lunachicks – Pretty Houses. EvilLyrics=NO. Yahoo=NO.

 

However, there are very few songs that EvilLyrics can find, that Yahoo Lyrics also has. As you can see, they represent the vast minority, and also only generally represent the more popular songs known by an artist. Artists with 100 songs might have 10 lyrics, whereas on EvilLyrics, you will probably be able to find all 100 songs:

Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit.EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=YES.
Jane’s Addiction – Been Caught Stealing. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=YES.
Chris DeBurgh – Lady In Red. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=YES. A popular 80s song.
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Nobody Weird Like Me. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=YES.
The Ramones – Havana Affair. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=YES.
Sisters Of Mercy – First & Last & Always. EvilLyrics=YES. Yahoo=YES.

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Anyway – EvilLyrics works better. It is by the people, for the people. It is run off the blood and sweat of individual fanboys who type up lyrics and post them to the internet. 100s of lyric sites exist, like drug dealers, constantly being taken down with new ones constantly popping up. EvilLyrics searches them all, and just works.

I feel sorry for anyone condemed to the purgatory of Yahoo Lyrics, if they don’t know about EvilLyrics!

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Also — IT’S EASIER!  EvilLyrics lyrics download automatically.  With Yahoo Lyrics, you have to change the dropdown to “artist”, search for the artist, then click on “lyrics”, then scroll a tiny texbox down for the song you want, and then click the song (which will be returned only as an image, not as selectable text).  With EvilLyrics, it happens automatically. If the lyrics aren’t right, you click the forward arrow and it tires a different site.

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Here is an original press release.  Fear the 400,000 songs!  That’s nothing!

 

 

 

Yahoo Music will allow fans to access up to 400,000 songs by artists like Prince and Beyonce.

Although lyric sites exist online, it will mark the first time major publishers will have given consent to such a site.

The lyrics come from Gracenote [formerly CDDB,], the company which powers the CD look-up facility on programmes like iTunes.

Users can search for songs using the Yahoo Music search bar, simply by entering a partial lyric from the song.

Over 100 music publishers have licensed their artists’ lyrics including the top five BMG Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner /Chappell Music.

Between them, they publish the words and music written by acts like The Beatles , Bob Dylan and U2.

Ralph Peer head of music publishing firm peermusic, told BBC News: “I think publishers stand to gain quite significantly from this new revenue stream.”