I'm in my second year of membership at eMusic now which says something in itself. That I've taken this long to get around to reviewing it says something else: considering how long it has been ahead of the curve, eMusic has definitely gotten short shrift in the dialog about the quest for DRM-free digital downloads. It's been at it more than a decade and has served into 9 figures of downloads from its catalog, which is in the vicinity of 5 million songs.
There are two obvious issues with eMusic. The first is that it is subscription only. There are no a la carte downloads: you have to sign up for a subscription plan that charges a fixed amount in exchange for a certain number of song downloads per month. While eMusic guarantees you can cancel your subscription at any time and attempts to lower this barrier to entry by offering a generous no-cost, no-obligation trial preview (which allows you to keep the trial songs you download whether or not you sign on for the paid service) many will find this requirement an obstacle. It certainly kept me away for a long time.
The second and arguably more significant drawback is that eMusic carries non-major-label music exclusively. Major label artists are represented here and there when their early career material was recorded on independent labels. But you will find no Madonna, no Beatles, no ABBA or Led Zeppelin here (considering this, it is an irony of eMusic's history that for a time it was owned by prime clinger to DRM and general customer abuser Universal).
The first question to answer then about whether an eMusic membership is right for your music budget is whether the indie label catalog is valuable to you. There's no question that eMusic's catalog is deep. There are tens of thousands of tiny labels represented, including heavy hitters like Merge, Matador, Drag City, Kill Rock Stars and Thrill Jockey, and eMusic has relationships as well with distribution giants The Orchard and CD Baby, among others. Noticeably missing is Sub Pop, who I believe inked a deal with Rhapsody. I wish I could speak intelligently to eMusic's Jazz and Classical catalogs, but here my knowledge falters. But for indie rock and alternative there's really no shortage of music available for years of subscriptions.
And there's no denying that the compensation for the membership requirement is good value, with the per-track prices for monthly subscriptions from 25 to 60 cents, depending on the plan chosen: additional discounts come if you prepay your account in advance: at the top level (75 songs per month) paid 2 years in advance, per track costs are as low as 20 cents. Even the lowest obligation (10 tracks paid monthly) beat iTunes and Amazon at 60 cents per track.
Downloads require installing a download tool and (unless there is some clever widget out there I haven't figured out) must be manually uploaded to your music player's catalog. I'm probably pushing a thousand song downloads and only once had a technical problem. The browsing and searching interfaces are pretty effective: I've in particular had better than average luck with their "Artists Like This" feature that suggests similar artists to what you're searching for - including artists similar to artists (like major label properties) that eMusic doesn't carry. I've found a number of new things following these suggestions. Another feature that can deliver a lot of value is information from other members. Viewing the playlists, reviews and so on from other members can lead to lots of similar tastes (it's good to remember, though, that these things are publicly viewable, so you might want to delete that "songs to seduce my best friend's girl with" playlist).
On to the downsides. eMusic definitely bears the marks of being built on older, legacy interfaces. Until recently, for instance, music previews came in the form of clunky streaming file downloads that caused me persistent problems in iTunes. They have finally come around to in-browser previews (via Flash, I assume) - but they persist in the all-too-common paranoia of offering abbreviated partial previews only. As I've mentioned before, I think the failure of digital sellers to give full-length previews represents a short-sighted approach that ignores the retail legacy of free listening. But they are certainly in good company there. And still, while it is not as slick as a fresh-minted start-up might be, the interface does continue to adapt and improve.
I think eMusic focuses on getting potential customers to sign up for their free previews to a fault: as a non-member it's fairly difficult to, for example, get to the point where you can browse their catalog or look over the subscription plans (the FAQ on subscription plans, for example, is out of date and leaves out many options such as the prepay discounts mentioned above). They don't go so far as to actually prevent non-members from viewing this information, they just don't make it easy. Again, it's a policy I think is shortsighted. Even signing up for a free preview is a certain amount of hassle, and I for one want to know a bit more about what I'm getting before I start handing out my personal data.
Once you are a member, it's important to keep in mind that unused downloads don't roll over: it's use them or lose them. Amplifying this problem is the fact that downloads are not strictly monthly: they reset every 30 days. So rather than knowing your downloads will reset on the 20th of every month or whatever, you have to keep track of when the deadline date is. While technically you get more downloads per month this way than if they reset each month on a particular date, I've lost a few month's downloads when I was too busy to keep track of my subscription. This is a situation that clearly factors in eMusic's favor - they could, after all, easily send an alert email when your downloads are about to reset. I've been told, however, that they do distribute revenue from unused downloads to their member artists rather than simply keeping it for themselves.
Although I have no experience with it, it has to be noted that there have been persistent complaints of eMusic failing to process subscription cancellations and continuing to charge customers after cancellation has been requested. Whether this is actually common or widespread, and whether it has gotten better or not over time, I don't know.
I consider these minor gripes. For the indie music fan eMusic gets solid props. I've gotten a steady supply of new music and indie classics for nearing 2 years and I suspect I'll be keeping my subscription up for years to come, indefinitely if the deal stays solid and new artists keep signing up. I hope to someday rectify some of my jazz and classical deficiencies through them as well. It's worth mentioning, though not strictly relevant here, that they also offer subscription plans for DRM-free audiobooks. eMusic deserves more recognition as a pioneer and being for most intents and purposes the best deal in digital music downloads. Keep up the good work, eMusic!.
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at that Index Page
No comments:
Post a Comment