In defense of eMusic
I was saying to some of my colleagues yesterday that as an ardent fan of eMusic, I feel a bit like a Linux user in a room full of Mac and Windows users. I know that my preference isn't as mainstream as what others are using, but I get so much out of it that I can't *not* be a huge fan.
eMusic is where I've been buying basically all of my new music for months now. It's a subscription-based service -- they charge me $20 a month, and for that I can download 75 songs a month. But unlike Napster and other subscription-based music services, the songs aren't restricted with DRM. Instead, they're encoded in MP3 at a reasonable bit-rate. So that $20 a month nets me music I can listen to from now until the end of days. There hasn't been a single month where I haven't absolutely gotten my money's worth and then some.
Don't look for Britney or Xtina's latest releases -- they don't cater to kids, by design -- the focus is on independent music and the adults who listen to it. They have a very diverse catalog -- everything from punk rock to classical to jazz. I've grabbed everything from Taiwanese death metal to classic bebop to world music, and I've grabbed favorites like Frank Black, Gary Numan, Underworld and They Might Be Giants, too. And really, the strength of eMusic is in discovering music you haven't heard before. I've been turned on to more great music through eMusic than I can count.
The way I explain it, eMusic is basically the cool neighborhood indie record store to the big box store that is iTunes.