eeee, that's a shame. (emusic.com)

Member Name: paulhanton

Product:	emusic.com
Date:	02/04/09 (430 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good rival to established music sites.

Disadvantages: Not big enough or slick enough.

I persuaded myself to join emusic.com on the basis of The Guardian offering, in conjunction with emusic.com, 30 free songs. Now it might surprise some members here, but I like my music, so 30 free songs was not to be sniffed at.

The deal was/is, you get 30 free downloads and then you can easily close the account, or sign up on a monthly basis to a certain number of downloads for a certain amount of money, the average price being a whole heap cheaper (at least half the price) of iTunes. There is a reason for this and I will explain in my conclusion.

After one month, (that is, two months if you count the free downloads) we have decided to quit emusic, it just aint enough for us...why?


~~The site~~

Quite user friendly in that, similar to iTunes there is always a set of 'offered' music based on your last downloads, though sometimes it is a bit way off.....mind you, so is iTunes. The navigation is simple enough with the choices of going to the (their) charts, based on top downloaded songs, albums artists etc. in different genres, this is good and bad, I will explain in a mo'.


~~The Good~~

emusic is cheap, much cheaper than iTunes, and the bigger your package (ooer missus), the cheaper the tunes. iTunes 2/10, emusic 8/10.

There is a great selection of World music, up and coming artists and quite obscure tracks, but then there is on iTunes too. iTunes 8/10, emusic 8/10.

The site is easy to use and there are a number of ways of finding the tracks you want once you get used to the site, but it is not quite as user friendly as iTunes, and iTunes 'Genius' is just that. iTunes 8/10, emusic 5/10.

I like the idea of looking at a genre and seeing what the most downloaded artists are, and unlike iTunes, this does not stop at the first 100 songs/albums/artists, you can keep going. I have discovered a nice few new artists here such as Jane Monheit (soon to be reviewed). iTunes 7/10, emusic 8/10.


~~The Bad~~

The site takes some getting used to.

When downloading tracks, they do not always slot easily into where you want them....unless you allow an emusic folder on the desk top of your PC. My tip here is to do that and once downloaded open up each folder and 'copy' each MP3 into the folder of your choice. Sometimes iTunes does not 'know' where the original file is unless you do what I just suggested, therefore it is fiddly. All that being saiud, at least they are MP3 format and not the silly iTunes formats. iTunes 7/10. emusic 4/10.

The worst thing about this site is the apologetic, justification page that comes up whenever you search for music that emusic.com do not have, they bleat about not being able to bring you this music at such a cheap price and then offer you some (usually sub standard) offering that you might like, grhhhmpf.

~~~Conclusion~~~

Cheaper than iTunes, yep, definitely, but there are reasons, mainly, the choice is limited compared to iTunes, many 'big names' are not included. Another reason is the quality of the recording on some of the tracks, avoid tracks from comilations as they tend to be quite poor quality.

The overall 'feel' of the site is one of work in progress, it is not as slick as iTunes, nor do the pages load as quickly. The catalogue is tiny compared to iTunes, and even some other sites and is, in fact, padded out with some serious dross. Unless they expand the selection they offer and make downloading a little easier they will die a death soon.

This is a shame really as there is certainly a niche for a site to rival iTunes, but with Amazon now getting in on the market (yet another review to come) I do feel that emusic have missed the boat a bit and we will see the demise of them before the year is out.

Summary: emusic.com.