Farewell sweet swindleeee

edited February 2010 in General
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.
«134

Comments

  • I'm curious, will your music expenditures go up or down after cancellation? Where will they divert to?
  • It'll be interesting to see which way it goes. I'll be attempting to make it go down, with perhaps some more money going to Amie Street than before but not as much as my annual plan. Since I still feel that mp3 downloads are typically not worth more than 3 or 4 bucks per album, my music acquisitions will probably go down a lot until I can afford to go used CD shopping again.

    I'd like to join the listen-more-acquire-less crowd this year...
  • I just steered myself towards some cool albums that weren't likely to be found cheap elsewhere.

    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).
  • I'm on the verge of saying adios there too. I have 3 more BB cards I'm working through, and after that I may go a la carte, since the newer BB cards (30 for $15, 100 for $50), make it roughly the same price I'm paying per track now.

    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 have a different Balmorhea, but I've been listening to that All is Wild on their myspace and I can't see myself not getting it this month.
  • I'll be checking out Balmorhea's older albums, but from everything I've read this one is a real turning point for them. Really fantastic - don't even bother with the Pitchfork review ;)
  • I have River's Arms. I really enjoy it. I've heard a couple full tracks off All is Silent, and Rivers Arms sounds a bit more sparse. Sort of closer to an Eluvium-heavy-piano soundtrack to the falling rain type sound (I think that's a genre on Amie). I can't recommend it as strongly as I'd like just because that sound doesn't appeal to everyone, but I listen to Rivers Arms about every other day and it really engages me, so maybe that's the best way to sum up my recommendation.
  • My 75/month grandfathered plan is about to go in another month too. I will probably go way down to the 24/month plan. Before the recent Warner/Anti etc adds, I was probably going to go to next to nothing. Right now though that seems soo hard to imagine doing.
  • I have to admit, the Warner drop sucked me back in.
  • I am hoping that I'll get some sort of disloyalty offer to give it another go. The new annual plans are worthwhile with the free nps they throw in, but I'm not willing to make that kind of commitment at this point.
  • loyalty re-up should happen in about 45 days. if you do re-up, make sure you reach out to customer service to request your plan at the old level (i.e. i was s'pose to go down to 24, but being a real old loyal smarm they gave me 30)

    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.
  • No one is like half-man, half-frog.

    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
  • I must keep racking up the cred to keep a safe distance between myself and the hell hound from P-Law, the KinkWizard, Ktripper (who I believe is Kinky Wizard incognito), and luddite the meteorite Having vanquished the first 41 Plongs, I must continue to battle number 42 (a.k.a. Mr Freeze) to safeguard my crown.

    Such is the life of half man, half frog….
  • I was going to say there are several excellent 60s Jazz albums on Rhino Atlantic for 6 credits. I plan on picking up 6 or 7 of them myself.

    Note that some listed in the link are 12 credits because of a longer songs, but a lot of them are not.
  • Wow, what a great list, thanks! Following some links out beyond that list, one tasty find is a 20-track <href='http://www.emusic.com/album/Keith-Jarrett-Foundations-The-Keith-Jarrett-Anthology-MP3-Download/11747377.html'>Keith Jarrett anthology</a> for 12 credits. Almost all feature Charlie Haden and Paul Motian, so definitely worth checking out. To be honest, I forgot that he'd recorded for Atlantic.

    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.
  • It's been 2 and a half months since my cancellation and you know what? eMu doesn't give a rat's ass. Not a single offer to come back after 5 years with them.

    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...
  • did you ever try to log in on your old account? I nver would have found my offer if I hadn't logged in.
  • I haven't received a come back offer in months. I log into my old account occasionally to check. Has anyone gotten one recently? I'm wondering if they've stopped (for now).
  • I actually log into my old account more frequently since I use that one for the DDs. Still nutin'. It's possible they're only doing retention offers and no come backs.

    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.
  • If you're logging into your old account on a regular basis, that may be why you're not getting an offer. I have a suspicion that they have a counter of some sort on lapsed accounts which resets anytime you visit the website. The reason for doing this would be that if you keep coming back to look voluntarily, they assume you might rejoin without them having to offer you freebies.

    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.
  • Those sneaky bastards. Guess I'll get the DDs with my new account for awhile.
  • I think I'm just about done (again). It's been a bad dry spell in jazz, and the miscategorization for electronica has become a disheartening time waster slogging through page after page of samples that are nothing like their genre tags insinuate. Add to that, the handful of new bands that sound interesting to me would screw me either by having album pricing or not having album pricing. Too many albums that really sound good to me, but I'm not gonna pay 12 dls for a six track album that barely clocks in at forty minutes or the one that costs 20 Dls for, also, forty minutes of music.

    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.
  • Well. I never did get of these offers, even on my double-secret probation accounts. Good theory though, froggy.
    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.
  • Second time I did this, but even better results this month:

    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.
  • Amie's folding? Did I misunderstand?
  • Katrina - Check the thread down a couple about Amazon buying Amie. They're shutting it down on September 22.

    Craig
  • hmm - glad i chx'd - i have about 8 bux of amiedollars to kill.

    just like that, huh? how's the big twinkie doing now that his street cred is zeroed out?
  • He's been sitting in the corner, rocking back and forth, muttering about how they can't take his RECs, and if they do he'll burn the building down.

    Craig
  • edited January 2011
    Bumping just CUZ I was searching for something else, yet this is what was fetched.
    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?
  • It sucks. Really, I'm starting to feel very saddened by all of the changes. Ditching eMu wasn't that hard at first. But that was thanks to having alternatives like Amie Street and Limewire (plus the epic Guvera giveaway). As much as I talk about listening more vs. acquiring less, I realize that I'm not likely to be able to afford even my more traditional acquisition levels anymore.

    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.
Sign In or Register to comment.