The business model is also unlike any other service: you pay a monthly or annual subscription fee that gives you a specific number of credits for use each month. All of the tracks available for download from eMusic are in MP3 format, with no DRM, and the downloader utility lets you choose where you want the tunes to go. Its selection got a significant boost in June last year when the company struck a deal with the Sony-affiliated labels to sell albums in its back catalog (two years old or older), and it got another influx of titles early this year thanks to a similar deal with Warner Music. If you're a price-conscious music lover, this should really be your main stop.Īmazingly, this little music service is still alive and kicking after nearly 12 years, outlasting high-profile competitors like MSN Music and Yahoo Music. The downloader utility works very well with iTunes and Windows music libraries. It offers regular specials, including an MP3 Daily Deal and bargain bins filled with categorized lists of albums for $5. Its MP3 store has a huge selection (10 million tracks, versus 11 million at iTunes) and it consistently has lower prices than the iTunes Store or Microsoft's Zune Marketplace. It just worked.Īs was the case last year, there's a lot to like at Amazon. I found on both Windows PCs and Macs that I didn't have to jump through any hoops to get downloaded music into either location. But Amazon, Lala, and eMusic all include lightweight downloader apps that are specifically designed to manage music properly and even add it automatically to the iTunes or Windows libraries. If you own either of those devices and don't buy much music in a typical year, that's probably a reasonable decision. When it comes to ease of use, it's logical to assume that the dedicated iTunes and Zune apps, which integrate an online store with playback, library management, and sync functions, are the best choice. I was not at all surprised to find some recent releases missing at eMusic I was surprised, however, that the new release from She & Him, "Volume Two," was unavailable from Zune. According to a January 2010 report from eMarketer, the iTunes Store has roughly 11 million tracks, followed by Amazon at 10 million and Lala at 8 million Rhapsody, eMusic, and the Zune Marketplace have 6 million tracks to choose from-not the same ones. There is no question that iTunes has the biggest selection of all the services.
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