I’m an utter eMusic partisan. For those who don’t know, you pay them $15 a month (less if you’re willing to make a year-long commitment) and, in exchange, you get to download all the MP3s they have, legally and legitimately. And these are plain vanilla, high-quality MP3s — no restrictive digital rights management.
The one catch that some people get hung up on: the major labels aren’t involved. It’s mostly indies. But who needs Britney, anyway? (Well, besides Justin, I mean.) I’ve downloaded over 200 albums so far; if you’ve got a big hard drive, adventurous tastes, and a fast connection, there’s no better deal out there.
Since some folks have begun to post their eMusic favorites, I figured I’d do the same. (I’d include links to everything, but I’ve got work to do — the eMusic search engine works fine.) Put all these in your download queue and I promise instant coolness. (Note: I’m probably leaving out some great artists whose stuff I bought on good ol’ fashioned CDs, so apologies in advance. The ones in bold are particularly good, and it’s often worth downloading everything they’ve got on the site.)
Tindersticks, The Decemberists, Pinback, Consonant, Badly Drawn Boy, Bauhaus, Matt Pond PA, Isaac Hayes, The Delgados, Stereolab, Mountain Goats, Mclusky, Yo La Tengo, The Promise Ring, The Lemonheads, Ivy, Mojave 3, Belle and Sebastian, Bill Evans, Ken Nordine, Steve Earle, Townes van Zant, and Guy Clark, The French Kicks, Red House Painters, The Strokes, Ass Ponys, Preston School of Industry, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Professor Longhair, Del the Funky Homosapien, Arab Strap, DJ Shadow Presents, The Fall, Spoon, Thelonious Monk, Mark Kozelek, For Stars, Pixies, J-Live, Big Star, Frank Black, R.L. Burnside, Pavement, Built to Spill, Ron Sexsmith, Mogwai, Beulah, Cex, Blackalicious, Radio 4, The Exploding Hearts, David Axelrod, Rainer Maria, Girls Against Boys, Peanut Butter Wolf, Guided by Voices, !!!, Zoobombs, Tahiti 80, Superdrag, The Wondermints, Apples in Stereo, Pernice Brothers, Interpol, Neil Halstead, John Coltrane, Cornershop, The Minders, Destroyer, Ted Leo/Pharmacists, The New Pornographers, Mark Eitzel, Pizzicato Five.
15 thoughts on “emusic recommendations”
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i’ve been debating signing up for emusic for quite some time now and with a new powerbook and an ipod i am closer than ever to taking the plunge. a few last questions: are the download times respectable (i live in cali)? is it easy to use? will i be flooded with junkmail if i sign up? and finally, has anyone out there had problems canceling? thanks.
if you’ve got a dialup connection, i’d be hesitant. the os x download manager used to be better because you could just queue everything up and let it rip. now you can only queue up about 50 songs at a time, so you have to do a bit more feeding if you’re downloading a ton of albums.
but i’ve got a cable modem and i’ve never had a problem with the download times. i’ve downloaded 40 albums in a night before.
as for your other questions: no junk mail that i’ve detected. and i haven’t canceled, so can’t tackle that one.
what i like best about emusic is that it completely lowers the barrier to entry for music. if you hear something about an obscure band, it takes a certain amount of confidence in their quality to plop down $15. but with emusic you just download it. doesn’t cost you a cent. and if you hate it, you just delete it.
also happy to report no junk mail, and respectable downloading times, although i also have a cable modem, which helps. i’ve discovered more new bands than i can count since i signed up for emusic 3 months ago, because it’s just so easy to take a little taste of this band, that band, and see what sounds good. i 100% support joining emusic, and i was hesitant myself at the beginning, so you can trust me!
josh, you forgot the dirtbombs, the detroit cobras and the reigning sound! and aren’t the new tahiti 80 & ted leo cd’s just great?
that’s it. i’m signing up. the list you posted convinced me (screw the majors, BTW).
“ELECTRIC VERSION” IS LIKE CRACK!!!!
i love it!! in fact i have never liked PORN more in my life!!
i can totally back emusic. i’ve been a member for going on three years now. it’s been excellent almost the entire way through. the only problem i’ve had with them is when they rolled out their download manager 2.0. it was a bit buggy and crashed often. that’s all fixed now. if you’re on the fence, go for it. you won’t be sorry.
i agree with all this. good download speeds if you have a high-speed line. no junkmail. heck, not even popups. it’s like heroin. and where else are you going to find the catalogs of bill cosby, lenny bruce and r. crumb? if your into that, i mean. not that i am …
I just remembered one last question? Can I use emusic on more than one computer, like on my laptop and desktop (at separate times of course)?
sure — once you download them, they’re just mp3s. you can do anything you want with them — move them to different computers, put them on an ipod, burn them to a cd.
as for actually downloading from multiple computers, sure, that’s okay too. all you have to do is login to the web site with a password.
I’m sold, thanks guys!
Wow. I’m gonna email them to get some commission cheques sent to Josh!
emusic.com…the best music service on the internet. A virtual unknown with the biggest subscription base around (not sure how it compares to the new Apple music store), it is 100% worth subscribing to as long as you are not looking for Britney Spears and her friends. The entire Belle and Sebastian catalog is worth the subscription fee alone. They are constantly signing new labels and building on their impressive content. Sign up now.
Josh, you have truly created a monster. After reading this post I signed up for the free trial, slurped up 50 tracks of 1920s jazz and immediately signed up for a year at $9.99/month. The music I downloaded last night alone would have cost me close to $300 on iTunes (even if they had it, which they don’t).
The additional bounty here is that I use my MP3 collection to do my radio show, and now I’ll be able to use it a lot more. I’ve now got hours and hours of early jazz and old-time stuff that would have cost me a fair bit even at DJ prices. (I also love the idea of broadcasting from an iPod.)
I’ve been up until 2am the last two nights downloading, and my new iPod still has 22GB of space to fill. I’m going mad, I tell you … maaad! As my other half put it, “Slow down, you don’t have to fill that thing up before the weekend.”
Thanks!
oh, and emusic has lots of lee hazlewood– if you’ve not taken that adventure yet, now’s the time.
hi what is this site about please?