I am not usually known for my music prowess and some of my favourite artists over the years have been somewhat questionable but before Christmas we were sent an Electric Jukebox to review and I thought that it was something that would make me "cool" with the kids. 

So if you are not familiar with the Electric Jukebox, I can tell you that it is Britain's first and only music streaming service and device, backed by Robbie Williams, Alesha Dixon, Stephen Fry and Sheryl Crow (Robbie Williams *may* have been one of those questionable artists I mentioned earlier but every girl loved Robbie didn't she??). The sales spiel tells me that I can turn my TV into the ultimate music machine, it comes with 29 million songs AND takes just 2 minute set-up. So what did I think?

I have to admit that I struggled with the review, hence the reason why I am posting this in February rather than prior to Christmas, mainly due to the price tag for the Electric Jukebox being £169 upfront, with an annual fee of £52 which seems a lot for something that you can essentially already do through your phone.

One of the big marketing messages with the Electric Jukebox is that it only takes 2 minutes to set up and surprisingly, it really does only take a couple of minutes. All you need to do is plug in, find the Wi-Fi and you are all ready to go, although I think the power cable could be a bit longer because not everyone has a free socket next to the TV.

It has lots of neat little features like the easy navigation and voice control, although I think the whole thing would be dramatically improved if the voice control doubled up as a kareoke microphone. Because everyone loves kareoke. Don't they?

I feel like this review has a definite negative tilt so as I am always looking for the positive in everything, I dug deep and found the things that we did like about the Electric Jukebox.

• Optional explicit lyric filter to protect your children from inappropriate songs
• In comparison a Spotify or Apple music yearly subscription is £120 a year - Electric Jukebox is less than half this price - £52 per year for unlimited music streaming. That's £1 a week to be able to listen to all the music in the world! That's a good deal, if you compare to the cost of a CD of downloading MP3's.
• The upfront cost of £169, includes the annual music pass. The remainder of the cost is for the hardware. With Electric Jukebox, you are getting everything you need to play music.
• You do not get any adverts on Electric Jukebox. For anyone that regularly watches Youtube, you will appreciate that this is a definite plus point. 

Overall, while it is expensive and not too everyones budget, it is a solid product that is simple to use and hopefully in time, with some hardware updates you may get a kareoke version. Although I suspect that my neighbours maybe living in hope that this is not any time soon.

Disclaimer : It didn't actually make me any "cooler" with my kids either!

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