AmazonMP3: Own music free and clear

Holy hannah, I’ve been putting off a blog entry about this since September, so it’s time to get this posted:

If you think iTunes is the only option for download-to-purchase music on the Web, let me introduce you to AmazonMP3. I just bought a boatload of tunes on both AmazonMP3 and iTunes this past weekend.

The vast majority of tracks on both services cost 99 cents. But there are some major differences, so let me point out a few.

AmazonMP3

• Most significantly, when you buy a song from AmazonMP3, it arrives as an MP3, meaning it plays on any portable music player. They’re free of DRM (Digital Rights Management).
• The songs are encoded at a nice, high-quality 256 to 320 kilobits per second.
• It’s all Web-based, meaning the buying experience is familiar and no need to download an application or deal with prompts to update it.
• The collaborative filtering Amazon recommendation engine is here.
• When you buy a song on AmazonMP3, a dialogue field pops up asking where
  you want to store it. In general, I have to manually enter the artist’s
  name and retain the song title.
• The downloads come with all the metadata about the track embedded.

iTunes

• Still the most groundbreaking of online music services, iTunes deserves kudos for dragging the music companies into the 21st century before they completely self-destructed. They’ve used that time nicely to upgrade their service.
• I’d still rather deal with a Web-based service, but the iTunes application has its advantages, such as being able to alphabetically sort song name, artist name and genre. That comes in handy if you’re looking for a particular song by a popular artist.
• iTunes also offers graphic bars that show how many people bought a particular tune in an artist’s catalog, giving you added incentive to check out what other people liked.
• iTunes continues to have a bigger selection than AmazonMP3.
• Give Steve Jobs credit for holding the line on pricing against record companies that want to make the buying experience more difficult with wildly varying prices. Almost every song costs 99 cents.
• Not sure, but I believe that if your label sells by the album only without offering individual songs for download, you can’t do business on iTunes. At least, I didn’t find the “Album only” buttons here that I found on AmazonMP3.
• When you buy a song on iTunes, it creates a new folder for the artist on your computer and stashes the song inside.
• On the whole, the buying experience feels a little impersonal and remote.

The big drawback is that iTunes songs, formatted in AAC, generally won’t play on portable music players other than iPods unless you spend hours reencoding them into an open format. This alone is worth the trouble of stopping at AmazonMP3 first.

Here’s how my buying spree went — I was in the mood for some pop, mellow stuff, trance and dance music and a smattering of world and salsa. I had a list of about 100 songs based on my listening habits on iTunes Radio and the former MusicMatch Radio. I always began my search at AmazonMP3, then headed over to iTunes if I couldn’t find the song. Here are the results.

At Amazon MP3 I purchased:

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova: Falling Slowly (from the movie “Once”)
Ivy: Undertow and Edge of the Ocean
Finley Quaye featuring William Orbit: Dice
Flunk: Blind my Mind
Madonna: Sorry
Bitter Sweet: Heaven
Sia: Soon we’ll be found and I go to sleep
Muki: I don’t want to know
Grandadbob: Hide me
Kate Havnevik: Nowhere Warm
Feist: Now at Last
Morcheeba: the Sea
Meiko: Heard it all before
Jem: Flying High and They
Elektralow: Water Feels Warm
Conjure One: Sleep

At iTunes I purchased:

46bliss: in a long time
Bassboosa: Dreaming
The Cinematic Orchestra: To build a home
Ruben Blades: Primogenio and Tiburon
Chungking: Following
Trespassers William: Untitled
Milk Inc: Sunrise (radio) (AmazonMP3 offered as album only)
Freemasons: Uninvited (AmazonMP3 offered as album only)
Bliss: Kissing
Tunes by flamenco guitarist James Robinson
Stephanie O’Hara: Come back & stay
Meck: Feels Like Home
Paul van Dyk: The other side

Never did find:

Antique: List of lovers
Miss Jma: Spring 2000
Lobo Ismail: One more night
2 Girlz: Let it out
Paulo Roberto: Un Giro al Mondo
OrioN: Desperado Moldova
Erini Merkouri: Trexe

That’s only a small portion, but you get the idea.

Check out AmazonMP3. New media strategist Shelly Palmer likes it much better than iTunes and wrote a few months ago: “it’s awesome! … I spent so much money at AmazonMP3 the other day, my credit card company called and asked me if it was a fraudulent purchase.”

Later: I’m a huge fan of independent artists, especially those turning out amazing music that won’t be found on mainstream radio. So it was very cool to get this note from a member of 49bliss:

As a member of 46bliss, I want
to thank you for mentioning us, and congratulate you on your good
taste! Actually I know and like a lot of the bands you bought that day!

We’re a self-produced, DIY band cranking out our music and using the
internet in every way possible to get the word out. We’ve also had the
good fortune to license our music to a few TV shows and commercials,
including Veronica Mars  (which got us on the soundtrack CD) and
compilations put out by RockRiver for the likes of Pottery Barn… we
give away free downloads at iLike, Myspace and download.com, trying to
stay on top of the social networks to get people to know about our
music.

Thanks again for liking our music, and if you ever want to write about
us, or have any tips of more we can do to help ourselves and our fans,
we’re all ears!

Best,

Jack Freudenheim
www.46bliss.com
www.myspace.com/46bliss

JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.