And I'm just not sure that there's any going back to eMu at this point. I just had 2 freebie months on 2 accounts. 1 I only d/led a single album and accidentally let the month laps because it was too much effort trying to figure out what to get. The other one waited until the very end and became very frustrating trying to get the math to work.
That starts to sum it up well . My annual plan expires in March. I'm still deciding what to do. I imagine I could keep enough to get an album a month and just go for the way out there stuff from my SFL. But with all the free or near free stuff out there and Amazon sales, I don't know if I will keep it. I definitely used to get a lot of my music through eMusic on purpose because it was there and a better deal than getting the physical copy or even an MP3 album from anywhere else, but with the bigger indie labels gone and the prices up, that reason to keep renewing is all gone.
That starts to sum it up well . My annual plan expires in March. I'm still deciding what to do. I imagine I could keep enough to get an album a month and just go for the way out there stuff from my SFL. But with all the free or near free stuff out there and Amazon sales, I don't know if I will keep it. I definitely used to get a lot of my music through eMusic on purpose because it was there and a better deal than getting the physical copy or even an MP3 album from anywhere else, but with the bigger indie labels gone and the prices up, that reason to keep renewing is all gone.
I'm waiting for my annual to expire as well. Price isn't as much of an issue--I came back because I wanted music in genres that don't normally come on sale--but the increases don't make it easy to stay. However, eMusic is starting to feel like an unfaithful lover. I don't want to feel angry at the company that gives me music, nor do I want to be suspicious of the quality of what I'm getting. I downloaded two great albums from eMu this month, but getting them was fraught with second guessing. There was no joy.
i'm on the $48.00 monthly-plan. i'm staying. i am still having fun. i am bummed about losing the major-indie labels; that's something that may make me re-think my subscription. one thing it's brought to my attention, which somehow escaped me before, is how much the major-indies parallel the major-labels; e.g., there's a publicity machine working for, say, beggar's group, merge, 4AD and matador similar to -- tho smaller than and targeting a more niche market than -- the publicity machines working for, say, umg and warner bros. this hit me when i began searching for stuff to restock my saved-for-later list after the departure of the major indies. i found a lot of stuff that seemed just as good as the stuff on the major-indie labels, but by almost totally overlooked acts (to be fair, it seems to me there's a third-and-fourth tier of labels, which have their own publicity arms, as well, e.g., the captured tracks and sacred bones labels). i've seen those "overlooked acts" before, but hadn't considered how they stack-up against their peers on other labels until those acts were the only acts i was searching for on emusic.
anyway, i'm still unhappy about the loss of the major indies. and i'm pretty much through, at least for the time-being, with the emusic message boards ("who cares?," i know, but whatevs.).
Yes I agree Daniel with much/all of what you are saying. I'm still on a good download plan, and I got some even cheaper 6 month booster packs from Groupon UK, so there is no reason to leave, especially as we are still at pre-major price levels with our monthly bonus. I do not feel though that I'd be attracted to join with the price level for new members now in existence, which is surely an indicator of where it will be going soon for all in UK and Europe.The only reason now I look at the message board is to see Dhaun's daily new releases in Europe thread, which helps me check if I have missed anything. I sometimes get drawn into a thread, but that is happening less than ever now.
I've certainly gained much form being here. I've played three albums already today from recommendations from people here today and I still have another to go, plus a few more in my SFL list
I'm staying also. I share fully in the being saddened by many of the changes, and also offended by some of the business and communication practices that surrounded them.
But it is still the case that a significant portion of the music I am interested in buying is either much more expensive or not available elsewhere. The departure of the major-indies affected me personally very little, though I sympathize with those whose loves lay there. But for me, for example, I collect fairly regularly from 12k records - their stuff does not appear in the Amazon or 7digital $5 sales, and it's typically $8.99 to download at those places, making the emusic $5.99 still a good deal. Same goes for some German electronica that can be very expensive to get on CD here. Infraction titles are not on Amazon at all. And so on. So despite all the negative overlays, emusic does still function for me in quite practical, concrete ways as the place to find and legally purchase downloads of specific small-label independent music. That is important enough to me that for the moment I'm going to roll with the shoddiness of the overall service, and there''s still more music there in that category than I can squeeze through the funnel of my $17.89-a-month-plus-boosters. The big label stuff that's been added in the last couple of years is the stuff I could get elsewhere, and so simply not relevant to the equation for me.
(Aside: As for the other line of thought that surfaces (I'm not attributing this to posts above, just referencing the debates in general) about whether or not to support the evil empire, from what I have read about Amazon's business practices it makes no sense at all to avoid business with emusic on ethical grounds but be willing to buy from Amazon.) So I'm a disgruntled sticker-around for now.
I'm still having fun and am staying too. The alienation of affection between me and eMusic happened with the Sony drop and related changes, Universal didn't change anything and while I recognise the importance of Beggars etc I hardly ever bought anything from them so that didn't affect me personally. Losing Concord did affect me, but still, after browsing a lot of Best of 2010 lists in the last two months I've added a few dozen things to my Save for Later and love the music I have downloaded as much as ever.
And of course if I leave I can't come back and don't have access to Amazon etc so eMusic it is.
(Aside: As for the other line of thought that surfaces (I'm not attributing this to posts above, just referencing the debates in general) about whether or not to support the evil empire, from what I have read about Amazon's business practices it makes no sense at all to avoid business with emusic on ethical grounds but be willing to buy from Amazon.)
Understandably this is a parenthetic comment. Nonetheless eMusic's defenders arrogantly conflate the "con position" to the company's supposed lack of altruism. However, it is only one aspect of the changes that have occurred to eMusic's product--changes that run contrary to the company's literature. Moreover, policy changes tend to be rolled out in manner that makes some or all of the membership captive to the company's whims. I've read that Amazon pressures labels to offer deeply discounted product. What I've yet to read that Amazon undermines or fools music consumers. Moreover,the so-called major indies still seem willing to play with Amazon.
@Bad Thoughts - I agree. Emusic is dishonest/manipulative towards customers [edit: or possibly just utterly incompetent]; Amazon is shady/manipulative towards content providers (the articles I read were mainly about book publishers, and involved pressure at least bordering on the illegal; and when one publisher refused Amazon temporarily removed the buy buttons from all their product). And I have full sympathy for anyone taking the position that they've been played with as a customer enough to need to sever the relationship. So not an emusic defender as such. The aside was just harking back to the bemusement I felt when reading some posts on the other boards that declared that they were leaving emu because it was too corporate/not indie/too unethical and then saying they would go to Amazon instead (which presumably is more indie and more ethical and not corporate!). That does not exonerate emusic, just means there's enough questionable business practice to go round. Actually I think the reason I mentioned it at all is that if valid, this is actually a line of thought that maybe could get me to leave emusic on principle even while I was getting good deals there; so it is a thought to consider when reviewing why I'm staying. I sympathize entirely with the critique but not always with the conclusions.
When I left they gave me an offer for three months, which worked out to pay $9.99 plus $8 bonus credit. Then after the third month, my account said that my next refresh would be that. And it kept saying that right up until the actual refresh, which turned out to be pay $20.79 plus $3 bonus credit. Sneaky. But then I found I didn't care, and found stuff to download and had fun.
I won't touch the Universal stuff, which unfortunately includes the Fantasy family now too, not because I'll notice the sound quality, but because I'm terrified of a bad quality rip subconsciosly ruining my interest in an album. I've read that this can happen, so I'm staying clear of it all until they fix it. And honestly I'm more upset about the Fantasy thing than the other labels, although I miss them too.
I've decided to just pretend I have read-only access to the message boards, and it's working out for me. I slipped in a couple small things when I couldn't resist.
I haven't been having much fun - the whole UMG audio quality issue really soured me, especially after discovering the dozen or so albums I DL'd after the conversion were all part of it. The disappearance and the UMG distributed reappearance of the Concord group is a BFD for me. I have whittled down my SFLs from around 1200 to some 800 now, assisted by the fact that so many Concord group titles that were there are just plain unavailable now. However, having spent some time going through the SFLs over the weekend I still found a lot to like that is unlikely to be cheaper elsewhere - although now I got religion and always comparison shop before DL'ing. Didn't use to have to do that, and that in itself still irks me. So bottom line is that they still have a lot of great music, much of which that I'm looking at having nothing to do with "popular" music, and it's so old and moldy that indie vs. major isn't even an issue. Filled in a nice chunk of original Fleetwood Mac and got Linda Ronstadt's Mas Canciones over the weekend, and that does make me happy. Also got some nice CDs lately, the acme of which was the Eddie Boyd The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions I got at Amazon which is mostly Eddie Boyd backed by Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac (sans Jeremy Spencer, whew!) - outstanding is all I can say.
I am seriously thinking it might be time to let go.
They still have plenty of music there that I want but the whole comparison shopping thing has just about got me.
It used to be 100% entertainment now it is too much work comparison shopping and dealing with idiotic customer experience.
I came into this deal when I bought a new computer several computers ago. I only intended to stay long enough to soak up the 50 free downloads and be gone. That was 10 years ago. I think I am now only hanging around for sentimentality. I just bought a new puter and there are a couple of download freebies in the box. Maybe I should try one of them and see who the next up and comer is going to be. Bing has an offer for free downloads. I think maybe I will check it out.
Fun over there? I have forgotten what that was. For the first time in years, I let some dough go because I forgot to spend some time deciding what to download. That wasn't a problem until recently. I don't know why I keep hanging on. Friends and family have told me numerous times over the years that my "loyalty" is a negative, that I don't know when to let go, and that applies to numerous situations. I need to do some thinking about this. I do know that having more music than any sane person needs is a factor.
Even just reading this thread I've gone back and forth in my mind since cancelling (again). Part of me says I should have just put it on hold to keep the 3 dollar bonus or whatever. If I can still pick up 4 albums a month for 20 bucks...
But now I'm talking myself out of it. That's $5 per album for mp3s. That's my upper limit. I just can't justify guarantee that every month. If I could have afforded to move up to the $48/month plan the bonus might have made it worthwhile... crap, I could have switched and then put it on hold here and there. Oh well. Like I said, too much thought is killing the fun.
As for eMusic vs. Amazon in the ethics department, it's always hard to know what goes on behind the scenes with any company. Not to say that there isn't enough information out there to say you don't want to deal with Amazon, but for most of us we can only really deal with how they treat us as customers. Personally Amazon has handled every issue I've had with them easily and promptly. I can't say the same for eMu.
That's why I quit. Not the ethcis but the customer communication.
You know, folks are still signing onto the Mordac message boards to find out about redownloading stuff. I only go over there when something is mentioned here and I typically only look at the first page.
And there it is, some poor sap of a Mordac customer who never even got an email announcing that rather important policy change. This is going to go on for months, just like back in the Sony drop when people noticed changes by other means - not from any email from Mordac.
thom, I didn't realize you had never really quit.
I always though I'd sign up for a month when I saw something good - but so far, it hasn't happened. I can find what I want elsewhere.
I post about music over there quite a bit although those threads don't see much action. STILL there is a thread on yodeling right now that has attracted numerous serious and interesting recs and only a small amount of mockery so I think that shows music discussion is still a goer. Will keep plugging away.
I volunteered to be in the What We're Listening To section as mentioned by Joe on 17 Dots and the message board, so I will get to spruik 5 albums on 15th February. All bribes considered.
@NankerP there has also been a thread on post-rock recently that went through quite a few turns at talk without any sarcastic or trollish interventions and generated some good recs. So there are still signs of life on them there boards.
@Katrina - I did quit, I just ended up rejoining more frequently than expected. Even though I quit again, I fully expect to rejoin a couple more times this year.
I was pleasantly surprised by some of the musical discussions over there (most notably the post-rock thread). Unfortunately there's still the problem that once you cancel your account, you can't participate. That, and the forum software was outdated 10 years ago...
OMG - did you ever realize that if you go to the Payment History page of the Your Account section and scroll down far enough there is a record of all the crack cards you've redeemed? Quite an eye opener. No wonder that hard drive got that way. So what kind of moment is it? Lord,What Have I Wrought or Wooh Hoo, Hell Yeah?
Assuming someone gave thought to this, I am curious as to why the picture below would be thought to tempt me to join emusic if I were not a member. I know that having some young, trendy(?) person with headphones on is a virtually obligatory visual cliche on MP3 sites, but she looks singularly bored and faintly hostile to me.
The picture is called "enticement.png". I think not.
Comments
If you aren't having fun ...
That starts to sum it up well . My annual plan expires in March. I'm still deciding what to do. I imagine I could keep enough to get an album a month and just go for the way out there stuff from my SFL. But with all the free or near free stuff out there and Amazon sales, I don't know if I will keep it. I definitely used to get a lot of my music through eMusic on purpose because it was there and a better deal than getting the physical copy or even an MP3 album from anywhere else, but with the bigger indie labels gone and the prices up, that reason to keep renewing is all gone.
anyway, i'm still unhappy about the loss of the major indies. and i'm pretty much through, at least for the time-being, with the emusic message boards ("who cares?," i know, but whatevs.).
I've certainly gained much form being here. I've played three albums already today from recommendations from people here today and I still have another to go, plus a few more in my SFL list
But it is still the case that a significant portion of the music I am interested in buying is either much more expensive or not available elsewhere. The departure of the major-indies affected me personally very little, though I sympathize with those whose loves lay there. But for me, for example, I collect fairly regularly from 12k records - their stuff does not appear in the Amazon or 7digital $5 sales, and it's typically $8.99 to download at those places, making the emusic $5.99 still a good deal. Same goes for some German electronica that can be very expensive to get on CD here. Infraction titles are not on Amazon at all. And so on. So despite all the negative overlays, emusic does still function for me in quite practical, concrete ways as the place to find and legally purchase downloads of specific small-label independent music. That is important enough to me that for the moment I'm going to roll with the shoddiness of the overall service, and there''s still more music there in that category than I can squeeze through the funnel of my $17.89-a-month-plus-boosters. The big label stuff that's been added in the last couple of years is the stuff I could get elsewhere, and so simply not relevant to the equation for me.
(Aside: As for the other line of thought that surfaces (I'm not attributing this to posts above, just referencing the debates in general) about whether or not to support the evil empire, from what I have read about Amazon's business practices it makes no sense at all to avoid business with emusic on ethical grounds but be willing to buy from Amazon.) So I'm a disgruntled sticker-around for now.
And of course if I leave I can't come back and don't have access to Amazon etc so eMusic it is.
i strayed back onto the message boards today to vent briefly. but i've come to my senses and stopped.
I won't touch the Universal stuff, which unfortunately includes the Fantasy family now too, not because I'll notice the sound quality, but because I'm terrified of a bad quality rip subconsciosly ruining my interest in an album. I've read that this can happen, so I'm staying clear of it all until they fix it. And honestly I'm more upset about the Fantasy thing than the other labels, although I miss them too.
I've decided to just pretend I have read-only access to the message boards, and it's working out for me. I slipped in a couple small things when I couldn't resist.
They still have plenty of music there that I want but the whole comparison shopping thing has just about got me.
It used to be 100% entertainment now it is too much work comparison shopping and dealing with idiotic customer experience.
I came into this deal when I bought a new computer several computers ago. I only intended to stay long enough to soak up the 50 free downloads and be gone. That was 10 years ago. I think I am now only hanging around for sentimentality. I just bought a new puter and there are a couple of download freebies in the box. Maybe I should try one of them and see who the next up and comer is going to be. Bing has an offer for free downloads. I think maybe I will check it out.
This is just not fun anymore.
But now I'm talking myself out of it. That's $5 per album for mp3s. That's my upper limit. I just can't justify guarantee that every month. If I could have afforded to move up to the $48/month plan the bonus might have made it worthwhile... crap, I could have switched and then put it on hold here and there. Oh well. Like I said, too much thought is killing the fun.
As for eMusic vs. Amazon in the ethics department, it's always hard to know what goes on behind the scenes with any company. Not to say that there isn't enough information out there to say you don't want to deal with Amazon, but for most of us we can only really deal with how they treat us as customers. Personally Amazon has handled every issue I've had with them easily and promptly. I can't say the same for eMu.
You know, folks are still signing onto the Mordac message boards to find out about redownloading stuff. I only go over there when something is mentioned here and I typically only look at the first page.
And there it is, some poor sap of a Mordac customer who never even got an email announcing that rather important policy change. This is going to go on for months, just like back in the Sony drop when people noticed changes by other means - not from any email from Mordac.
thom, I didn't realize you had never really quit.
I always though I'd sign up for a month when I saw something good - but so far, it hasn't happened. I can find what I want elsewhere.
I volunteered to be in the What We're Listening To section as mentioned by Joe on 17 Dots and the message board, so I will get to spruik 5 albums on 15th February. All bribes considered.
I was pleasantly surprised by some of the musical discussions over there (most notably the post-rock thread). Unfortunately there's still the problem that once you cancel your account, you can't participate. That, and the forum software was outdated 10 years ago...
;-)
COOL. i very much liked your write-up.
The picture is called "enticement.png". I think not.
Wow, does that sum up a huge emu forum demographic or what?