Tuesday, March 29, 2005

eMusic vs ITMS : High-Gloss Music Store Smackdown

Putting aside all the candyass objections to subscription vs. purchase-based models, I decided to investigate two major, legal digital music purveyors: Apple's iTunes music store and eMusic's MP3 download service. Who wins? Who dies? I decide!

First up, iTunes. Meh. I object to Apple's iTunes on two grounds:
1) 128 bitrate AAC. Why? Why?!
2) DRM, which is illegal for me to remove

At first sight, eMusic offers a compelling alternative to iTunes.

The good:
1) 192 VBR LAME --alt-preset-standard MP3 encoding. La crème de la crème. This I can get behind; it's what I use for my personal collection.
2) No DRM. eMusic trusts me to be an adult--what a concept!

The bad:
1) Although eMusic positions themselves chiefly as purveyors of "indie" mp3s, iTunes has more indie music! Go look for recent stuff by Lemonjelly or Jans Lekman and you will not find it on EMusic.

Therefore I have sailed the seas and canceled my EMusic account. As another strange plus to choosing eMusic, cancellation is a breeze and can be done through their website. This is way cooler than Netflix or Earthlink, who force you to call their hallucination-inducing tech support to cancel your account. (Note: I savor and love my Netflix account. Earthlink es del diablo.)

Given my objections above and my possession of an iPod Photo which I regard with the tenderest affection, you'll understand I would not glance at Napster except to spit across its path. eMusic might be ok for the occasional download, if you can avoid getting suckered into a subscription, but there is still, for me, no ideal music store from which to make legal purchases. Looks like I get to visit the used CD store or The Site That Must Not Be Named. Since musical preferences are so individual, however, your mileage will vary.

10:22:58 PM    comment []