Farewell sweet swindleeee
It's official. After almost 5 years I canceled my eMusic account last night. My grandfathered annual account was about to expire and I just couldn't justify re-upping at this time. It's possible that I'll get a good offer to rejoin or just sign up for a month here and there, but it will no longer be a continuous joy or burden...
Left with 54 nps to use before today, this was my "parting shot":
Balmorhea - All Is Wild, All Is Silent
Betty Davis - Betty Davis
Matthew Shipp - Nu Bop
Múm - Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today Is Ok
Mylo - Destroy Rock & Roll
Zombi - Sapphire/Long Mirrored Corridor
The funny thing is that I really didn't even scratch my SFL list at the end. Balmorhea only came to my attention after a recent daily download. I kept planning on d/ling Betty Davis and Múm for awhile and almost forgot about them since they never made it to the SFL. That Mylo album was a pleasant surprise while perusing the RA best of the decade list yesterday. And the Zombi was a total shot in the dark looking for the final 3. Only Matthew Shipp's album was actually saved for later. In the end I realized there was no way I could avoid missing something I really wanted, so I just steered myself towards some cool albums that weren't likely to be found cheap elsewhere.
Left with 54 nps to use before today, this was my "parting shot":
Balmorhea - All Is Wild, All Is Silent
Betty Davis - Betty Davis
Matthew Shipp - Nu Bop
Múm - Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today Is Ok
Mylo - Destroy Rock & Roll
Zombi - Sapphire/Long Mirrored Corridor
The funny thing is that I really didn't even scratch my SFL list at the end. Balmorhea only came to my attention after a recent daily download. I kept planning on d/ling Betty Davis and Múm for awhile and almost forgot about them since they never made it to the SFL. That Mylo album was a pleasant surprise while perusing the RA best of the decade list yesterday. And the Zombi was a total shot in the dark looking for the final 3. Only Matthew Shipp's album was actually saved for later. In the end I realized there was no way I could avoid missing something I really wanted, so I just steered myself towards some cool albums that weren't likely to be found cheap elsewhere.
Comments
I'd like to join the listen-more-acquire-less crowd this year...
That's the best thing you can do, whether you were to stay with eMu or not. The Shipp probably can't be had anywhere else for less (except maybe at an obscure cd sale somewhere).
Amie Street is a good alternative for some of the stuff, although they only have a fraction of the selection that eMu has. The price is hard to beat, since with credit sales and REC money, you're usually actually paying less than half price of face value for the music.
Thanks for the heads up on Balmorhea, their first album is on Amie for under $5 (about $2 real money for me). nice music to have playing in the background.
i am just ok with amie. i'm prolly too comfortable with the search through emusic catalog and i don't rack up the street cred like half-man, half-frog.
also i was never at the absurd "too much level" - the 50 dl monthly. so imho, the cut was truly hitting me where i wanted not to be hit...i genuinely listened to what i dl'd.
I love my 50 dl monthly, and I genuinely listen to it too! Already on my second sweep through what I snagged with my refresh over the weekend. I still can't decide what to use the last six nps on though. So many good recs in that other thread.
Craig
Such is the life of half man, half frog .
Note that some listed in the link are 12 credits because of a longer songs, but a lot of them are not.
I've been a member since 2003, but I'm about to bounce too. Just as my 90/month was expiring, I put it on hold to see what else shows up in the next few months. I'm saving some shiny recent finds - including a half-dozen or so from these Rhino/Atlantic jazz 6-packs - for a final orgy of 100/$30 cards that I recently found. The Warner stuff definitely kept me interested, and a bunch of said orgy will include more of that, but money's just too tight to keep going. Time to catch up on listening.
So I started up another temporary account. Got 50 freebies. When I was looking at a 21 np album with only 11 nps left they offered to give me the whole thing for free if I started my paid account immediately. Went ahead and paid for a month of 50 nps. Just canceled it today and you know what? They offered me next month for free. Looking like 161 nps for $20.79.
Long term memberships are for suckers...
Also, as much as I had been hoping to decrease my spending it's probably close to the same with everything that normally would have gone to eMu (and in many cases Amazon or CDs) going to Amie. Even with a more limited selection than eMu there are so many freakin' deals on that site. I only wish I had bought into the system earlier - so many albums were missed deals because it was free or skipped for me.
I quit one of my 3 accounts. I didn't get any offers for months, until I stopped logging into that account. About a month and a half after my last login, I got the 75 track offer. I joined for a couple of months to get some of the Warner/Rhino albums a albums, and then tried to quit, at which point they offered me another free month, which I took. I ended up quitting after that month, partially because I had such a backlog of music from eMu and Amie, partially to cut back non-essential spending for a few months. I just checked my email for that account. They are offering me another free 50 tracks for coming back - only 3 weeks after quitting.
I've got 34 more downloads to use before the 24th, and then that's it. That is, of course, until I get a healthy rejoin offer, and then maybe I'd consider joining again. Though I gotta say, I'm not gonna be quite as anxious to get the rejoin offer this time. Emusic is becoming tedious.
If Anti came back, I'd rethink joining up again.....wait! I just double checked, and Anti IS back! Well, well, well. Guess I missed THAT news.
I do remember it being tedious during the summer. Maybe that Anti will tempt me next February.
50 track trial
10 freebies for starting paid membership "early"
50 paid credits ($20.79)
5 freebies for "liking them"
5 freebies for survey
10 freebies for rating albums
50 paid booster credits ($19.99)
25 freebies for booster purchase
50 freebies for cancelling
255 nps for $40.78... not bad. If I do another paid month it still averages out to about 20 cents/np. I might just stick around with Amie bidding a fond farewell.
Craig
just like that, huh? how's the big twinkie doing now that his street cred is zeroed out?
Craig
thom I don't think you really let go of eMu at first - I know I didn't - but at almost a year later, what's your take?
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.
I'll keep doing the month here and there to pick up stuff, but the fact that their default price of $5.99 actually bumps up from the cost of 12 tracks really bugs me - it just makes the math that much harder.