I know that I’ve made a few references to eMusic before, but I haven’t yet dedicated a post to it. That is all about to change right now.
Imaging all of the things you hate about iTunes. Start with the fact that it’s full of commercialized crap, add a dash of overpriced price point (99¢ a pop? wtf?) and mix in highly restrictive DRM-encoded files (although that’s just me being bitter – Apple no longer uses DRM in the iTunes store, thank god)… what do you get? Screwed every time you click this:
Don’t get me wrong, I love iTunes for its beautiful organization of my music library (it’s about the only part of my life that actually stays neat and tidy), but its music store is just not what the more advanced music listener is looking for. That, my friends, is where eMusic comes to the rescue.
eMusic is a web-based independent music store that focuses on music that the conglomerate corporations feeding iTunes would rather you not even know about. If you are looking for new, fresh music that hasn’t been picked over by hundreds of thousands of tone-deaf idiots looking for the current top 10 billboard listings, then this is the place you want to be. There’s hardly any commercially-signed music, and what’s there is the 2% that’s actually worth listening to. They have a massive selection of music from every genre you could think of, including an incredible section devoted to classical music and its sub-genres.
Now for the selling point. You get music that has no restrictions whatsoever, and you get it for a fraction of the price of iTunes. What’s a fraction? It’s a monthly subscription based system, and for the subscription that I pay for, I could buy 15 songs from iTunes. I get 50 from eMusic. That’s 30¢ a song. Eat that iTunes.
But wait, there’s more? Indeed. You get your first month for free. That’s 50 free downloads. If you don’t like it at the end, you don’t pay a thing and they give you the music. It’s yours. Forever. And that goes for anything you purchase on eMusic. Not a bad deal, is it?
If you consider yourself a person whose life revolves around music, it’s time to graduate to eMusic and really start listening. You’ll be amazed by the things that you discover.
Zach speaks the truth! Emusic is an awesome service. It’s perfect for someone like me who spends most of his time in the bluegrass genre but likes to dabble in Shostakovich on rare occasions. For any of you who are into Emusic, may I also recommend wncw.org; my favorite online radio station. They archive and publish their daily playlists which are always a source of inspiration when deciding what to do with my 50 downloads per month. Viva la emusica!