Since artists release new music CDs constantly, updating your Gracenote software is the only way your system has a chance of improving its performance in displaying the correct track information. At $15, that's probably the most cost effective 'upgrade' available for a car like this.
Computer programs that convert CDs to computer files use the live Internet based version of Gracenote and other similar services, and their success rate is really good. iTunes & Winamp both use Gracenote.
Gracenote will likely fix errors reported to them, especially for mainstream artists, so I would definitely recommend this update.
I still disagree. The internet solutions are updated daily or at least weekly. Unless you want to go to the dealer every Wednesday since most CD's are released on Tuesdays, it's wasted money.
Not to mention when my CTS was about 3 months old, I ran in to the problems i described above with my Pink Floyd CD's. I also could not get any readings for a couple of brand new CD's, which is logical since the CD came out after I bought the car. When I went to my dealer, they were clueless to what the hell "Gracenote" even was. Once I pulled out the manual and showed them the section on updating the Gracenote database, they took over 3 hours just to tell me they think the update I have is the latest one....and besides, they don't know how to update it anyways.
True this is the fault of incompetent service "pros" but the point is that even if you do get this updated, it will be out of date by the following week.
What they should have done is allow the Gracenote data base to be updated by OnStar once a month....hell, I would pay for an option like that!