emusic, classic or dud?

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This emusic website, offers 25 free downloads of unrestricted mp3 files, in return for you trying out their service.

So, I've done the only sesnsible thing: Located their search page, made lists of tracks I'd d/l, and see how far I get before I dry up.

So far, I'm up to 13 tracks, but that's including all of Neu'75.

Has anyone else gone about this thing?


ALso, oddness: As I (and no doubt you) do from time to time, enter an old band name into google, only for some mysterious mp3 sites to come up that I've never supplied tracks to, implying that if I d/l the emusic software, I can access these tracks. I'm entirely unbothered about the 'piracy' angle as they are well old and welcome to them. But I can imagine some people getting very hot under the collar about this. I did upload these to Vitaminic a long time ago, so If you did similar, I'd check it out if I were you.

M Grout (Mark Grout), Monday, 27 November 2006 09:25 (seventeen years ago) link

if you look around you can get 75 free downloads. in the past there were offers for 100 or 150.

emusic in the beginning (flat fee, unlimited downloads): CLASSIC.
emusic now (various rates, all overpriced and bound to be more of a ripoff soon): DUD.
getting free mp3s from emusic and then cancelling before your account kicks in: CLASSICKEST.

GAWD PUNCH (yournullfame), Monday, 27 November 2006 11:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Well, 75 free d/l is nice but then I get to the point of "Do I really want this?" even about things that take up very little physical (i.e. real world) space.

Other things on my list = 1 last track off Ys I don't got, a Kenickie Gary Numan cover, a very long Amon Duul2 track, KometenMelodie cover versionm, and "Do you think I'm sexy" by Hybrid Kids.

It's not great, is it?

M Grout (Mark Grout), Monday, 27 November 2006 11:59 (seventeen years ago) link

last time i did the free mp3s thing i was on the verge of disgust with emusic's whole deal. then i discovered the huge amounts of fela kuti, dub reggae and indian film soundtracks on the saregama label (literally hundreds). so it's pretty cool as long as you're not paying.

GAWD PUNCH (yournullfame), Monday, 27 November 2006 13:10 (seventeen years ago) link

I got in before the most recent reduction in downloads-for-your-buck. I have the 90/month plan for something like $20. Classic in the sense that you can get huge amounts of Folkways, Drag City, Touch & Go, Thrill Jockey, Dischord, Prestige jazz, Bollywood soundtracks, and a whole mess of other stuff cheap. It's most cost-effective when you go for the longer tracks (e.g. "In C" is one track). The worst values are 30-track discs of 2-minute Yoruba drumming tracks and that sort of stuff, but you don't really need to get all 30 tracks in some cases.

Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Monday, 27 November 2006 15:59 (seventeen years ago) link

More on the "oddness"

It occurred to me that they seemed very keen on you d/l the emusic programme.

Could this be some sort of "Shell" program, where you enter your credit card details, it signs you up to emusic, and meantime they go off shopping?

M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 28 November 2006 09:13 (seventeen years ago) link

two months pass...
We're sorry. This album is unavailable for download in your country (United Kingdom) at this time. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. twice already!

One or more tracks from this album are unavailable for download at this time. is just kind of annoying.

out of my 30 strong amazon wishlist, a mere 2 albums (both I could get IRL for closer to £5 than 10) are on there.

100 free @ http://www.emusic.com/zvue though if you fancy a go.

Feel the need to try something I wouldn't normally listen to, or be able to find in the shops.... but stuck for inspiration!

da mystery of sandboxin' (fandango), Monday, 12 February 2007 23:13 (seventeen years ago) link

What do you like? The latest Ornette Coleman record is on there. They have tons of Mad Professor and Augustus Pablo.

went to a lame show on fri (Factory Sample Not For Sale), Tuesday, 13 February 2007 22:49 (seventeen years ago) link

they also have:
Salvador
Donnacha Costello's only full-length
and a respectable amount of UR stuff, which is kind of weird.

the table is the table (trees), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 01:28 (seventeen years ago) link

Get the Ornette Coleman!

jim (jim), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 01:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Decent afro-pop selection. Have recently been enjoying a Kenyan album called Benga Blast!

The classical selection is sort of weak - they mostly have inferior performances of great works or those Naxos re-releases that you can get for like $5 anyway. Some good historical finds though.

I still think the sound quality might be a bit low on emusic though, even compared to iTunes.

Shadowcat (A-Ron Hubbard), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 02:31 (seventeen years ago) link

yes it is. but meh, it's free! at least for 100 downloads. then it is cancellation time.

the table is the table (trees), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 04:02 (seventeen years ago) link

I have the 90/$20 plan. I'm getting kind of sick of it and will probably cancel in a month or two, but I loaded up on a fair amount of good stuff.

Shadowcat (A-Ron Hubbard), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 04:29 (seventeen years ago) link

Same here (90/20). eMusic is classic. Cheaper than iTunes, 100% legal, no DRM, tons of independent/pretty obscure stuff, etc. Plus, they always have new shit being added.

brightscreamer (brightscreamer), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 04:57 (seventeen years ago) link

I should have specified...eMusic is classic to supplement your regular music-purchasing habits.

brightscreamer (brightscreamer), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 04:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah. I tried to use it as a replacement for a little while as an attempt to save money, but it's just not doing the trick.

Shadowcat (A-Ron Hubbard), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 05:01 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah, you can't use it as a replacement. it's more of a supplement.

the table is the table (trees), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 05:17 (seventeen years ago) link

it sounds like we're talking about powerbars or something.

the table is the table (trees), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 05:17 (seventeen years ago) link

I have tried same with powerbars - well, Clif bars anyway.

Shadowcat (A-Ron Hubbard), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 05:19 (seventeen years ago) link

eMusic stuff is encoded at higher quality than iTunes Music Store.
eMusic encode at minimum 192kb VBR mp3 (using LAME 3.96) and iTunes at 128kb AAC.
Even with AAC's marginally better compression/quality ratio over mp3 eMusic stuff should have better sound quality.

treefell (treefell), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 09:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I see they have Bloc Party's new one, but oh.

I might actually do a get on Felt.

What else? I did get the "Prefects" live one, and there's plenty Fall there.

M Grout (Mark Grout), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 09:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Every time I think to myself that I really want a legit copy of some album, and that it's about time I gave up on CDs, I go over to emusic and see if they have it. And they don't.

ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 10:13 (seventeen years ago) link

They have that "Dub side of the moon" which is pretty good and better than PFloyd. Oh, and the dub OK computer also.

Arlo Guthrie remade "Alice's Restaurant" that's there also.

M Grout (Mark Grout), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 10:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh and "The Gossip" I remind myself...

M Grout (Mark Grout), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 15:09 (seventeen years ago) link

I am totally addicted to emusic. I have the old annual plan that works out to 90/$16 and a monthly second account at 90/$20.

They just added Luaka Bop which I bookmarked lots of stuff from. It's possible that they'll get EMI, which could change emusic significantly.

a.b. (abanana), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 16:31 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.emusic.com/profile/mycollection.html?nickname=plumdr4nk

and what (ooo), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 16:33 (seventeen years ago) link

what did you think of vakill

deej (deej), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 20:39 (seventeen years ago) link

four years pass...

A rant I ranted last weekend when drunk follows. I stand by it all, the user experience of this site goes from idiotic to idioticker ... but I still love the basic premise of emusic, so that's why I actually care a bit. Who dreams up these shit ideas anyways???

/rantstart
-----
I know most or all of these things have been said many many times before, but I'd just like to add my voice:

-- One should *not* be required to know that one should click a button labelled "+" to save for later. I do not want to "+" the album, I want to save it for later, so I'm looking for a part of the screen saying "save for later", or "remember" or "make note" or something synonymous. Not "+". There are swathes of blank grey space on every page now, so I do not buy that "+" was necessary for space considerations.

-- EVERYTHING IS TOO BIG except the actual information content on every page. This ties in with the "+" point.

-- Tying in with both points above, DO NOT HIDE THE MOST RELEVANT INFORMATION. If an album has 274 tracks, you not only ought to, but *MUST* SHOW ALL OF THEM RIGHT AWAY. No scrollbar, not a "more" link.

-- OK I can choose between seeing 24 and 48 albums on each page. WITH HUUUGE COVER GRAPHIX HURRAH! No. That is not what I want, and especially not in three columns. If it absolutely *has* to be limited, I want to see as a minimum of 500 albums on each page, in ONE column, and hold the covers, not interested in those. (Please remember that for many of us, ctrl+f is a mode of webreading.)

-- Do not violate Web navigation standards. In Opera, shift+click means "open in new tab". In Firefox, ctrl+click means "open in new tab". Emusic ignores all of this, and opens the link in the same tab. Yes, one can rightclick+"open in new tab", but that is not how I (for one) intuitively browse; you are violating universal usability contracts here. (To be "fair", I believe the previous version of Emusic violated them as well.)

-- The general rule to be remembered above all others: Redesigns, updates and revamps are, without exception, A BAD THING per se. I'll grant that sometimes they are necessary. There were quite a few things with Emusic it was necessary to redesign, update and/or revamp. The overlap between these things and the ones that have been worked on is zero.

-----
/rantend

anatol_merklich, Thursday, 1 December 2011 23:40 (twelve years ago) link

i haven't been able to browse at all since the change - i have to search for everything using google

so much for discovering new things or browsing labels

cum (fart), Friday, 2 December 2011 00:03 (twelve years ago) link

guesswork: new ceo of this year wants to make it "premier streaming site", use established brand "emusic" to compete with established brands "spotify" and "pandora"; not give a shit abt actual extant business model and customer base. In other words ALL IS LOST unless I'm a bit paranoid obv.

anatol_merklich, Friday, 2 December 2011 00:20 (twelve years ago) link

you're not paranoid, but i don't think that's the motivation for the site changes.

they went from some costly framework for presenting the site to users to a nearly-free framework for presenting the site to users. the transition has been very rocky, and they apparently didn't do enough beta-testing or take other curative steps. it's gotten better, but there are still many bugs to be worked out. the change, as i understand it, was not motivated by any great decade in revenues or profits (emusic is still at about 400K subscribers, as it has been for a few years now), it was just a cost-saving measure that hasn't been handled well.

this is all from the emusic message boards. i agree with a lot of what anatol_merklich said, btw.

Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 3 December 2011 04:22 (twelve years ago) link

sorry, "any great decay"

Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 3 December 2011 04:22 (twelve years ago) link

finally canceled my account after...eight years of membership? it just got too tedious to try and spend all my money now that track costs are so variable. every month it was like a game of tetris trying to spend down to below a buck.

reddening, Saturday, 3 December 2011 05:39 (twelve years ago) link

mmmm. time has passed, sadly; always warm feelings though and they're welcome to leave the toothbrush just in case

Dranke, the German Drake Impersonator (forksclovetofu), Saturday, 3 December 2011 06:20 (twelve years ago) link


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