EMusic - C/D

Can't argue with 35 free downloads, no strings attached (assuming you remember to cancel your account within a week)

The genre tags on their dls are pretty o_0 though. Apparently Amadou et Miriam are reggae, while Funkadelic and Debbie Deb are both hip-hop.

A ton of "world" albums on eMusic are mistagged as "reggae."

what's the bitrate on eMusic these days? I can't find anything on the site and I think it was something like 128 last time I used it (c. 2001). but Chilly Gonzales has released six or so hours of his Guinness World Record 24-hour piano concert digitally and I'm v keen to check it out (and finally buy something where the royalties might make it to him, after Kitty-Yo).

alternatively, anyone got better things to say about Amazon, 7Digital, Deezer, AOL, Starzik or We7, who also seem to be "stocking" the "albums"?

it's a higher VBR now, 192 i think?

i've bought a lot of stuff from 7digital, no quality issues, and they have the gonzales stuff at 320k CBR, though they are more expensive than emusic.

You won't find major label material besides Sony/CBS etc., but if it carries the independent labels you follow (in my case Warp, 4AD/Beggar's Banquet, and a few others), the costs per download are lower than elsewhere and a subscription makes sense. Everytime I think of cancelling I find at least 5+ albums to queue up.

I like lala.com a good deal. They've got an unusual first streaming play = free/unlimited streaming play = $0.10/download = $0.89 pricing scheme, but no subscriptions, and are licensing a good deal of major label (and others like ECM) material. Also, you can load your music collection to their server cloud to facilitate copyright violation prosecution so that you can play any of your collection on any net connected computer. Something like 180 GB on their network is now devoted to my music which didn't match previous users'.

anyway k1t unless you are currently a subscriber it is academic as they are no longer accepting new regs from australians

fuc that noize :(

will have a look at 7Digital later, ta - I remember finding their sign-up too frustrating to bother for some exclusive track a year or two ago, but for a whole bunch at 320k I'll grit my teeth harder

lala looks like a rip-off of last.fm, which is so attractive.

eMusic always has higher bitrates than 192 - most things are VBR. Occasionally you'll see things at 256 kbps, but for the most part they're high.

emusic.com/lovefilm lets you download fifty tracks for free.

its handy if you want to build your william basinski collection as many of his albums are one "track".

Just got an email from them saying the entire Hendrix catalog goes up on Jan. 1.

has anyone else experienced emusic crashing when trying to download something in firefox on a mac?

No but I have deliberately avoided upgrading the eMusic DL Manager bcuz I'm afraid of stuff like that...

noticed that supermarkets here have emusic cards for sale for £10. i think it works out as twice as expensive as a subscription but without the subscription hassle (or the need for a credit card, which is where i fail)

actually, the prepaid cards are 20 for £10 which is ok compared to 24 for £9.99 subscription

they also do cards for 100 downloads for about £30 (and 50 for £21) but apparently these higher denominations are thin on the ground.

eMusic is now having a sale on its "Booster Packs." Fifty credits for $20.00, which basically cranks out to .40 a song.

Cool, thanks for the tip. I'll bite on that.

I was going to, but then I spotted this 7Digital sale. So many good MP3 albums for $2.00. I think the downloading process is a pain.

So I forgot that my account refreshes on the 26th or thereabouts, rather than the end/beginning of the month, and thus got ROBBED of $5.01 (was hemming and hawing on how to spend it since seemingly every album I wanted was $5.89 or $5.99. Totally fed up with this horseshit plus the relatively low bit rates and wanted to cancel my account. Short story long, they offered me a free month to stay. I took it, but am so cancelling after that.

yeah i've been on the $6.49/month plan for the last few months just as kind of a minimum involvement thing to see whether i want to stay in the long-term and increase my subscription again at some point, and it's really frustrating that pretty much every time i'm interested in a new album it's $6.99 (or it's even higher, which is frustrating in a different way because at that point i can usually get it cheaper on Amazon mp3). last month i kept delaying using it my downloads hoping that something new would come along with a lower price and then i forgot to go ahead and just download something older and cheaper before the new month rolled over.

so they've taken away record label name and release date from the new releases page

was there a point to doing this? uh i mean congrats on fucking it up for new bands i only discover through knowing the label name, wtg

i can't imagine the hassle having that info there was causing, i am sorry for your lots

cockmunchers

That really sucks. I browse classical new releases primarily where label is v v v important.

it looks like it's only gone when the cover art is thumbnailed (my default view). so not the end of the world but still hell of annoying

Found a good classical label (Radioservis, seeming to specialize in Polish and Hungarian stuff) whose album price is $4.40. Good to know about for those end of month situations. Has anyone noticed any other labels (of whatever genre) at this price?

The 61-track Homage a Nesuhi is a great comp of Atlantic Jazz for $5.99

Oh, good tip! There are a few such 2fer deals on there-- the Rhino Larry Levan comp is (or was) the price of one disc, as is Daniel Barenboim's killer 2cd of the Schumann symphonies. Some others I'm not remembering.

Now that the dust has settled on eMusic's new pricing structure, are there many people still using it? And if so are you satisfied with it? I let my account lapse about a year ago when I a little cash-strapped, but am thinking of signing back up. Is it worth it?

I'm still in but mostly just to irritate them.
My "grandfathered" account = Price: £6.39 (every 30 days) Bonus: £10.41 (every 30 days) Total Credit: £16.80 (every 30 days)

argh why do i keep forgetting to cancel my membership

at this point i basically keep my minimum membership partly as an excuse to look at eMusic's new releases slate every few weeks, which tends to be much easier to navigate than iTunes etc.

still cheaper than the alternatives for me

Same here.

i'm still grandfathered in at 22¢/track

still cheaper than the alternatives for me

― pitch defect (electricsound), Wednesday, May 11, 2011 7:13 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark

i haven't done a lot of side-by-side comparison pricing but in my experience Amazon MP3 tends to have whatever new album i want for less than eMusic is selling it for

I got grandfathered in too - I use it, mainly for stuff I want to be able to listen to on my ipod while I'm running or sleeping. Sometimes I think it's a waste, but I always enjoy choosing my music and it is cheaper/easier to manage than alternatives. I don't like the switch from downloads to cash, though. It makes me feel way more likely to cancel.

amazon is not available to non-US residents

my alternative is 7digital, which occasionally is cheaper but not as a rule

oh right, forgot where you live -- still, though, i would like to give a shout out to Amazon MP3 for anyone who cares, they're pretty good!

Amazon has some stuff that emusic doesn't, they had a lot of seventies glam and bubblegum type stuff I like, but the navigation is atrocious. Emusic is definitely worth keeping if you're a big music fan. I'm glad they expanded actually!

amazon is not available to non-US residents

It's available in the UK.
But, more to the point, when are they going to stop with this 'region' shit?

when are they going to stop with this 'region' shit?

yeah i am fucking sick of it. australia gets fucked in the ass with this stuff all the time because we don't have any competitive local alternatives, either in range or price. itunes is more expensive than buying a cd.

I'm grandfathered but still deeply fucking aggravated after another month of missing my refresh date and losing out on $7 or $8. It is so obnoxious that they don't send a reminder email, which would be so insanely easy for them to do.

FYI - I attempted to cancel and they said "please don't leave - have a month for free and stick around," so I'm waiting for my refresh date to if it's that easy.

Since they're dicks who can't be bothered to send a reminder email or respond to inquiries about why they don't do that, I'll let everyone know how the free month plays out because you can all probably get one.

can you not just set an outlook reminder to yourself?

(other reminder applications are available)

i'm still grandfathered in at 22¢/track

the thing that really pissed me off was that i was in at 22 cents/track, but they kept diluting me down until it was 3 to 4 times that. the extent of my "grandfathering" ended up being like one track per month over current rates. more of an insult to injury thing, but srsly- fuck off emusic. i can buy at similar rates without a subscription.

can you not just set an outlook reminder to yourself?

I guess so, but - and I am willing to accept that this might be misguided - I kind of feel like the burden shouldn't necessarily be on me in this type of scenario.

i kinda agree. it'd be easy enough and nice of them. but sometimes you've gotta help yourself (and it is benefitting you, for not much effort)

(my 3g dongle quota is similar, a 30 day cycle. but i've done nothing about it. they DO actually text me when it's near the end but i never get them as i don't use their clunky windows client)

Well, you've all pretty well answered my question. Not going to resubscribe.

Just put my account on hold after 6 years (will probably drop it for good, but wanted to make sure)and signed up with MOG for mobile.