We recently were taking a close look at all of the services where you can purchase tracks from AOTPR artists. Of course, there is iTunes, AmazonMP3, Napster, and Rhapsody but we also wanted to take a look at some of the more innovative services to get a feel for them. The most intriguing had to be Emusic. They only sell from indie labels which means most of the major label garbage is automatically filtered out. Yay!

First off, Emusic is a subscription service that gives you a set amount of downloads per month. The price per track is a very reasonable (it can vary from $0.25 to about $0.40 depending on the package you choose). Plus you can get a free trial going that gives you 25 DRM-free downloads at zero cost. We figure you can get all or some of our tracks there for free. You have to give a credit card to sign up but if you cancel there will be no charges incurred.

Click here to get the special 25 free MP3 trial!

Johnny and I decided to sign up for Emusic to make sure we wouldn't be linking to a less than great service. Johnny will post his experience later. Mine are after the break.

Dan: For me there is nothing like going into a great record store with nothing in particular to purchase in mind and leaving with something you've never heard before that totally rules. I can only remember having that experience at great stores like Shake It in Cincinnati, the venerable Aquarius Records in San Francisco, Raw Records (RIP) and Reckless Records here in Chicago.

Great descriptions and great staff selections make the sometimes hit or miss task of discovery a lot more enjoyable. I feel like this is exactly what Emusic is doing, and doing quite well. I was a bit wary as I had beened burned a few times by online suggestions from stores. Thankfully this was not to be the case. After a few minutes of getting used to the home page I was off and running, listening to previews, reading editorial and user reviews, and following links to live performances on YouTube. It was very easy to decide when to download a track and even though I burned through most of them I felt like they were not wasted.

I was a little disappointed when one of the more well known groups I like wasn't on there (Emusic doesn't carry the major labels). The search did point me to a solo project from one of the members though and I ended up buying the album. Overall a very surprisingly positive experience.