Alternatives to eMusic?

edited June 2009 in General
As far as I know, there aren't any really.
But I think we should share any good info we have.

Here's some from a post I made earlier...

Amie St - never seem to have stuff I want available to me in the UK, but I'll keep checking it more often now.

Audiolunchbox - I used to use it, but have heard so many bad things I'd be reluctant to go back.

Amazon's UK mp3 store is OK but the special deals are mostly a lot less special or interesting to me than the US ones I keep hearing about (Frank Sinatra box sets excepted of course!).

7digital.com and Play.com both get some decent bargains, but still mostly only in comparison to the higher UK pricing.

Bleep.com, Boomkat.com - mostly great for electronic stuff but also other genres depending on label.

Beatport.com, Junodownload.com - dance / electronic all the way.

klicktrack.com - scandinavian indie site, has some interesting things

mp3.mondomix.com - 'World' music for want of a better term. Used to be Calabash.

tentracks.co.uk and 14tracks.com - sell pre-selected themed bundles at cheap prices. Some great deals if you happen to like the choices.

I never really got on with Last.fm. Couldn't say for sure why, it just didn't ever feel right for me.

I'm going to try and get into using Spotify I think, although the collector voice in my head keeps screaming that it's wrong to not OWN the tracks, for a lot of material it might do just fine in the long term.
Until the ads get too frequent or the bad guys shut it down of course.

...any more?

Comments

  • Alternative forums...

    Music Gourmets seem like a decent crowd and you can spot some old eMu faces there too.
  • Have you ever tried Lala? It appears that you can play pretty much whatever you want, and it is $0.89 per song with album pricing and weekly deals (the new Eels is currently $3.99).

    I might have to investigate further.

    Craig
  • No, haven't tried Lala. Looks interesting, but seems to be US only.
    I'll stick with Spotify for the streaming option I think.
  • I just read about this site in a comment on tech dirt. Haven't listened to anything, yet...
    http://www.jamendo.com/en/
  • I grabbed a cool release from Jamendo yesterday by a band called Juanitos. Everything on there seems to be French, though???
  • edited June 2009
    Music Gourmets is a great forum. Right now there's a weekly listening club that spotlights an album that one user picked during a weekly best-of-a-given-year forum that went on all last year.

    At first Music Gourmets looks like a private party with lots of in-jokes and irreverent banter, but overall, I've really enjoyed it. And drunken ramblings are not only tolerated, but encouraged. Or at the very least, readily forgiven.
  • edited July 2009
    Alternative Forums...
    If you're in Canada, particularly Southern Ontario and Quebec you should check out www.stillepost.ca
    It's a very active community of musicians, writers, artists, movie fans, critics, and fans of culture in general. It's my primary haunt on the Internet.
  • t-viper: is that the correct link??? i get a "forbidden until you pay your porn bill" message...and i know i'm paid up thru the next cycle.
  • edited July 2009
    I wonder how hard it is to start a download site? With the collected talent we have here...

    I would propose the name of andiemusik.com
  • Yah it's the right link. The forum just wasn't happy with my linking style as it seems.
  • amclark2: I got the impression that dealing with labels will drive you to drinking and abusing perscription drugs. There's also apparently a negative aspect that I didn't quite grasp.
  • that may explain a few things over there...
  • agreed. when you get down to it, a stack of contracts is probably their biggest asset - wonder if they ever wrote off all those modems from the unlimited days...
  • edited July 2009
    April 23, 2009 - now out of date re the place that shall not be named:

    6 music services compared: Who can bust the iTunes monopoly?

    Nothing new here, just thought you might be interested in his opinion.
  • Oooh! this looks interesting...
    Is this where you post without scrolling through pages and pages of general abuse and argument?
    Great

    Hello!
    I've not had much experience of other downloading sites, never felt the need till now. I have had a go at Jamendo recently (best download so far is HiFi Hustlers - Blagging it EP, excelent, fun, dubby). My only slight complaint is the deluge of emails I got when I joined, still, they've slowed to a more managable quantity now.
  • We will not tolerate abuse of Generals, or any servicemen, for that matter.
  • I've thought for a long time that Amazon was going to clean [redacted]'s clock. As for iTunes, the Kindle is a secret iPod killer with (1)Built-in stereo speakers (2)Stereo headphone jack (4)Huge high-res display (5)Instant free wireless delivery.
  • I really really really wish we had Spotify in the US. Yeah, you can't take it with you, but if you are anchored to a computer all day, it is tits! I know, we have Lala, but their model is a joke. Listen once and then pay a "web licensing" fee to listen again? Are you shitting me? I might look into Napster as $5 a month is reasonable and soon as my sub runs out, that's $20 extra dollars a month I'll have to play with.
  • Now that Amazon download has arrived in France, I find that I like it. It has a better interface than either iTunes or the Other Place, and seems to have a wide range of music. Used in conjunction with Spotify, it will work quite well. (I'm not sure how long Spotify will be able to run the way it is doing at the moment. Already the adverts are becoming more intrusive - and more self-referential).
  • I like Amazon, too. I had a lot of difficulty downloading the last album I "bought" -- I hadn't changed anything, so I don't know what happened. Amazon customer service was Johnny-on-the-spot, got back to me right away, reset my downloads, and after two attempts that didn't work, they advised me to uninstall the downloader and download the tracks individually. They reset my downloads for the third time, and the individual downloads got it done. This was a free album, too, so I don't know if they would have been so generous otherwise. I'm betting they would.

    The excellent customer service is a definite plus with Amazon.
  • I've used Amazon for their daily deals for some time now and am happy with them. They even once refunded my money on an accidentally purchased album (my brain was faster than my finger in realizing that it was not a FREE sampler).

    I do not get the Lala "web purchase" thing.

    This morning I made my first purchase at the LimeWire store. Christian McBride's Live at Tonic - which went up to 36 credits at you know where. Not the best interface, but the product is good. Hopefully they'll expand even more and be in good shape for when my annual runs dry.
  • edited July 2009
    The alternatives in Australia are very thin on the ground indeed. Amie St is fun but has geographical restrictions too, and they affect me more than they did on eMu because there isn't the volume of other stuff available. No Amazon, lala, Rhapsody, Spotify, Napster, Limewire ... mp3.mondomix.com looked OK but also expensive.

    Sony actually has its own download store in Australia which they only launched last November -- I can't believe they would go to all that trouble just for little ole us so I presume it is a trial run for a wider roll out. Make of that what you will. With unitentional irony, it is called bandit.fm.

    After declaring I would never give them my money, I weakened and tried it on the weekend because they were having a "buy your first album and get a $20 credit" promo. So I did that with two credit cards. Got Miles' Kind of Blue, The Best of the Johnny Cash Show (great CD), Gilded Palace of Sin and Burrito Deluxe -- Flying Burrito Bros, some tracks from the new Knaan record, a Ray Charles EP from Rhino, the Blind Faith album and some other cherry picked tracks.

    I was happy with what I got for what I spent with the free credit but overall I will stick with iTunes for mainstream needs. The price is the same -- too expensive (about USD $14 and album on current exchange rate) but while it looks pretty it is just that bit more clunky and time consuming to use. And they send you zip files instead of automatically synching with iTunes. There are some good things, the catalogue is not just Sony, the downloads are 320kbp (although I tend to think thats actually excessive, a Miles track can easily clock in at 30MB!), no DRM. If they have more desperate promos I might use them again but otherwise, I don't see them getting much traction.
  • edited July 2009
    NankerP - is Jamendo not free in Australia?

    This this is the Jamendo I've been trying
  • Sorry! I meant mp3.mondomix.com. Yes, Jamendo is free.
  • I don't get the point of lala's "web songs" either. Since they allow you to upload your own stuff why pay the 10 cents?
  • ml is hopping up + down about mtracks. went there + saw the black angels decked out on the front page. this will merit further research.
  • edited July 2009
    On the eMusic bulletin boards, thristyear mentioned the Internet Archive. There are some good concerts there (a lot of Grateful Dead concerts), and some podcasts, netlabels, radio shows, audiobooks (all in the public domain). Anybody who likes the Ozric Tentacles ought to check out the 30 or so performances by the Oresund Space Collective. Not quite as polished as the Ozrics but definitely worth a listen.

    Other places to buy downloads (good, but not cheap)

    Mindawn - mainly progressive rock, some of it top quality. OGG and FLAC downloads

    Burning Tree - contains music by side projects of Porcupine Tree band members, and a lot of other interesting stuff. MP3 or FLAC downloads, with CDs, and even vinyl for some issues.

    (edit) Magnatune - Lots of different genres. Free download of 128k mp3 files. Purchase in flac, I think (didnt buy anything from them yet)

    I also ran into a place called 'music is here'. It charges 99c per download, doesn't have a lot of stuff compared with iTunes/Amazon/eMusic, and seems to be based in Latvia. Does anybody know anything about it?
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