Emusic used to be so much cooler

I'm going to make a departure from the last two posts, which were pretty much about things that I hate. This time, I'm going to extoll the virtues of the music service to which I subscribe, emusic.com.

How I found out about emusic is fairly amusing (to me, at any rate). I was taking a jazz class the summer betweeen my junior and senior year of college, and I was supposed to listen to two Dizzy Gillespie CDs and write a reflection on them. I am a legendary procrastinator, and the fact that I got to actually searching for these CDs on Sunday evening (the work was due Monday night) was almost a record for me getting something done in advance. So yeah, with less than 24 hours until this fairly significant project is due, I have absolutely nothing done.

Me being the resourceful college student that I am, I immediately start hitting up web searches for track listings of Dizzy Gillespie CDs so that I can download them off Kazaa. One of the hits directed me to a page that not only had a bunch of Dizzy Gillespie CDs, but I could download them directly from the website! It was a paying service, but my first 40 downloads from the site were free, or so they claimed. Anyway, at this stage in the game, I was willing to try anything, so I used my bank card and got the free trial. Two Dizzy Gillespie CDs later, I was coasting my way to an A in jazz class.

So, I had about 25-30 downloads left on my free trial. Time to poke my nose around the site. I find all kinds of stuff that I'd sort of heard of before, but hadn't listened to much. The Get Up Kids, Alkaline Trio, Saves the Day, Yo La Tengo, Hot Water Music, and so on. I am very intrigued. Entire CDs, and unlimited downloads, for $9.99 a month. Chump change, when you think about it. My collection quicky grew. By the end of my senior year, I had probably 80 CDs downloaded.

After a while of no internet access, I went back to emusic. I was saddened to find that they have since changed their subscription plans, with $9.99 getting you 40 downloads a month, $14.99 netting 65 downloads, and 90 downloads coming in at $19.99. One thing I am extremely happy about is that my collection remained intact from my unlimited downloads time, because the computer I had in college had crapped out.

It's pretty funny though, I look forward to the refreshing of my downloads at the beginning of the month with close to the anticipation that I look forward to payday. Anyone with an appreciation of hard-to-find music, who doesn't want to run the risk of getting the Feds chasing you, I recommend emusic.com. It's got some great bands that often slip under the radar of popular radio, and has definitely expanded my musical tastes.

I still yearn for the days when I could download upwards of 20 CDs in a month, if I had the time and inclination, but I enjoy the music that I do download. I could get more adventuresome in the old days, because if the CD sucked, so what? Now, I have to choose the CDs I download slightly more judiciously, as I would be upset to find out that I wasted 10-15 downloads on a CD that sucks. It's still a good system, however, and is probably the only paying download site that I see myself subscribing to.