Buying Digital Music Online

The twenty-first century has arrived in the house of Mike: I have bought some digital music online. It’s quite exciting, and now I’ve taken the plunge I’m finding it all too easy to spend money on music. Instant gratification is a powerful thing.

The provocateur of this was my discovery that CD Baby now sell mp3s alongside their CDs for many of their albums. I instantly snapped up Regina Spektor’s 11:11 and an album by Jill Tracy, Diabolical Streak, an artist who I found during some aimless myspace browsing. Tracy’s music is really lovely; dark and sensuous parlour music. CD Baby is awesome: for mp3 downloads, 91% of the money goes directly to the artist.

I have started subscribing to eMusic, where you pay a monthly fee for an allowance of mp3 downloads. It is unfortunate the subscription is for tracks, I’d much prefer an album allowance. As it stands, you often end up putting up with half an album until your download allowance is refreshed. Still, they are good quality, well tagged mp3s and worth the money.

My friend also pointed out bleep to me this morning, which I recall seeing a while ago; they now have a large selection. Their mp3s are recorded at 320kbps, making them very high quality. With albums at around £6.99, I shall need to exercise significant self restraint.

You’ll note these are all mp3 download stores. I still maintain my previous statements re: any other format; you’d be crazy to by any DRM-affected tracks. The age of DRM may be coming to a close; more importantly I can finally give some money to artists.