Music: All good things must come to an end. EMusic has been bought out by some bunch called ‘Dimensional Associates’, and will no longer offer its excellent download service; instead you’re limited to a measly 40 MP3s per month. (For context — last time I downloaded some listening material was on Monday, and I picked up about 80 MP3s in a single sitting.)
They’ve shut down their message boards; third-party discussion groups are filled with wailing and gnashing of teeth; and worst of all, I can’t even download the remaining stuff on ‘My Stash’ (the downloads-to-do list) because they’re overrun with rats deserting the sinking ship. (no reflection on the rats — I’m one myself.) Either that, or they’ve just turned them off; which is annoying as I had lots of music lined up to download when I got a chance.
This is very bad news — Apple’s iTunes is full of crappy music, Mac-only, and DRM-crippled; Rhapsody is Windows-only and DRM-crippled; there’s really no other legal MP3-download option.
I guess I’ll just have to go back to buying 1 or 2 CDs every few months when I’m buying stuff from Amazon (which I do nowadays anyway, in addition to EMusic) and just listening to the radio in general instead.
Thanks anyway, EMusic, for introducing me, helping me get into, or helping me rebuild my collection of such great music as:
- Ladytron
- Lemon Jelly
- Belle and Sebastian
- TRS-80
- Yo La Tengo
- Pepe Deluxe
- Layo And Bushwacka
- Asian Dub Foundation
- The Pixies
- Stereolab
- Johnny Cash
- Future Sound of London
- Freq Nasty
- Matmos
- Cornershop
- Thievery Corporation
- Cocteau Twins
It was great while it lasted.
Ah well, I guess I’ll save a tenner a month, which I can put towards the GameFly subscription…
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