emusic.com

[Milestones]

I thought there might already be a thread on this, but if so I have not found it.

My main source of downloads for several years now has been e-music. I've gotten some greats deals, such as five records by the Great Jazz Trio and some of the music by Clark Terry/Bob Brookmeyer. And a a lot more, often at prices that could be considered real steals. It's been cool to see them add many more choices, such as Blue Note albums--even current releases.

But their pricing sure bumped up just recently. They no longer serve as first choice in terms of cost.

Any thoughts?

[sonnymax]

I enjoyed their services for a couple of years, but quit some time ago because of the onslaught of budget titles from european labels with dubious masterings. It was like wading through aisles of bargain bins in the hopes of finding one or two things of interest. At my age, it's better not to waste time and instead pay a little more at amazon or itunes.

[BFrank]

I still use it a lot. It's not anywhere near the bargain it used to be, but I have an annual subscription which brings the price down somewhat. In most cases it's still a little cheaper than other online services.

[Milestones]

I downloaded some stuff by Herb Ellis--something like 5 original albums from the 50s, with the order rather skewed. It was less than 5 bucks as a I recall. There are similar sets from Grant Green and many others. Is that the kind of stuff you mean? Maybe I haven't listened closely enough, but I'm not having an issue with sound quality.

[A Lark Ascending]

I have a legacy plan which essentially gets me £80 worth of music a month for £39. Although the prices are not what they were initially (that had to be unsustainable), choosing carefully can still bring in some real bargains (e.g. I down loaded a 4 CD Stennhammar set from BIS this afternoon for £13 in their pricing, about £6.50 to me). You just have to be careful - in the UK version price is by track so albums with loads of tracks (like a lot of pre-LP era jazz) can be excessively priced. But ones up to around 20 tracks can still be cheaper than elsewhere.

Agree about the swamping with budget label stuff. Scrolling through the newly available used to be a pleasure but now it's a real pain. Easy to lose interesting new releases in the repetitious cheapo releases (which are no cheaper on e-music - same by track pricing).

I never have any difficulty using up my monthly quota.

[ejp626]

I know there is a thread on eMusic, but it is dormant. I'm pretty unhappy with the changes they've made over the past 5 years, and I unsubscribed for a while. I recently rejoined and have maybe 6 months' worth of albums to go through still, and then I will quit again. The pricing structure never made much sense to me (per track rather than per byte), making it absurdly expensive to buy older material with songs under 3 minutes. Same with classical music where a 40 minute piece might be 4 tracks or 25 tracks. There are vast swaths of the catalog unavailable to one country or another (in which case it shouldn't be left in there as a tease). And the search function is so crap that it is easier to start searching for whether eMusic has n album in Google rather than from the eMusic site itself.

[BFrank]

Seems like they've cleaned up the "per track" pricing for the most part. Albums are usually priced between $5 and $7 regardless of the number of tracks.

[A Lark Ascending]

That varies between countries. Still per track in the UK. Which is daft. Proper boxes you can get for £10 in CD form at £40 etc!

We were promised lots more labels over here too when they changed their pricing method. That never happened. We don't get the major labels available in the States.

That doesn't bother me much - I always liked the idea of e-music as an outlet for smaller labels. There's an endless treasury of classical music there.

Edited February 16, 2013 by A Lark Ascending

[mjzee]

I recently dropped my eMusic membership, which I had for many years. I disliked that they discontinued their $25 booster pack, forcing me to buy a $50 booster pack for any type of savings. Also, I've downloaded so much music that I've yet to listen to that seeing the new month come around was beginning to feel like a burden. I'll enjoy what I have; I can always reup.

[ejp626]

Seems like they've cleaned up the "per track" pricing for the most part. Albums are usually priced between $5 and $7 regardless of the number of tracks.

Still per track in Canada as well. Sometimes you get a great deal, but for anthologies of early jazz it is a lousy deal.

[.:.impossible]

Quit using it a while ago. I don't have a reason to own 320k mp3s.

[bogdan101]

It's great for free jazz.

[Milestones]

I received an email suggesting that the sign no longer requires membership, at least if you've been a previous member.

[mjzee]

I received an email suggesting that the sign no longer requires membership, at least if you've been a previous member.

But prices are a lot higher without membership.

[bogdan101]

Looks like the crew bailed out on the emusic ship. It's fun reading the forum: people swearing up and down trying to see if any mods are at the controls

[mjzee]

End of an era for eMusic - WSJ

[bogdan101]

I'll miss them if they drastically change their profile. Some of the greatest bargains I found on emusic:

CT - 2 T's for a lovely T for about $4

Braxton Iridium set for $12

AEC Live for 30 cents

Die Like A Dog Complete FMP recordings for $5

Coltrane - Live Trane the European Tours for $14

and many many others.

[BFrank]

Interesting. I hadn't heard about this.

They have been experiencing some serious technical problems for the past few days (at least). Typically, they are very slow to fix, too.

[BFrank]

Another change for eMusic:

Emusic Returns To Indie Roots Amid Shift in Online Market

They dropped all the major labels as of today. Will be interesting to see how this pans out.

[Shawn]

Another change for eMusic:

Emusic Returns To Indie Roots Amid Shift in Online Market

They dropped all the major labels as of today. Will be interesting to see how this pans out.

They lost me as a customer right around the time they added the majors, I haven't even looked at their website in several years.

[Indestructible!]

Oh, eMusic... what a roller coaster ride it's been.

I started on eMusic back when they offered unlimited downloads. Looking back, those days were unbelievable; I had the download manager running pretty much all night, and their jazz collection was great, even in those early days. Lots of the OJCs, free jazz,etc.. The reggae/ska/international selection was pretty damn good too. I felt a bit guilty, but most of the albums were in 128 Kbps, so I convinced myself that it was all good.

They got wise and stopped the unlimited downloads, and for a while their subscriptions were good value. Then they got greedy and threw longtime subscribers under the bus in the quest for big money and major labels. Like Shawn, I bailed right around the time the majors starting showing up.

I also remember when Circuit City was selling $25 eMusic booster pack cards for some ridiculously low price ($4.99 maybe?, or even less than that). I grabbed all the cards I could find, and when it was all done I downloaded over 200 albums at an average price of about 30 cents per album.

The eMusic message boards were hilarious... the complaints that there was no "real" music there to download (before the majors showed up), the complaints about the download manager (to be fair, it was hot garbage most of the time), and the angst about longtime subscribers getting the shaft... so much drama. Maybe I'll head back there to check on the fallout of this new direction for eMusic.

[BFrank]

I'm still a subscriber. It's definitely not the great deal it once was, but it's still cheaper than iTunes or Amazon if you get an annual subscription. I'll probably keep it indefinitely, because I like getting 3-4/month. It's an incentive to stay involved and continue to try out new stuff.

[.:.impossible]

Circuit City and eMusic in the same sentence... hm.

[A Lark Ascending]

The said they were adding the majors a couple of years back to the UK version but it never happened.

I never have any difficulty using up my monthly allowance - I have a 'legacy' plan worth double the cost price. Still a bargain for me.

I'm always convinced I'll see a 'closed for business' sign any day. They must have lost a lot of ground to streaming.

[Scott Dolan]

I dumped them a few months back when my rollover date inexplicably hit four or five days before it normally did, and I lost $18.

Partially my fault, I know, but to hell with that nonsense.