I'm struggling lately to find music online to purchase. In the past, MSN had a pay per song service that was tied into their media player. The downloads were fast and reliable...and the music quality was pretty good. In fact, they had so much stuff online with that store, I ended up buying old radio programs and other stuff too.
Well, when Microsoft switched over to the new version of media player, it nuked the old music service. The new one? It doesn't work here, either. In fact, most online stores I go to give me the, 'sorry, our service is unavailable outside of (insert country of origin here).' Napster...Rhapsody...HMV. Walmart works, but their selection of censored tunes just turns me off (besides, I'm a Target sort of guy).
Oh yeah...and I refuse to use iTunes. I downloaded and used it once. I can't stand the format (I don't own an iPod) and I was offended by the copy rules they have in place (cannot share...and only 3 ro 4 copies can be made). I just haven't drank the Apple kool-aid. Despite compelling designs and high prices, I'm not quite sure what else they can give me. Granted Microsoft is nothing to smile at either...but the whole cult of Apple turns me off.
So, I found one store in which I can buy music and I gave it a shot this weekend...MusicGiants. Initially, I was a bit taken back by the prices. Full albums run about $15.00, which is what I would pay for a full CD with artwork. But, I decided to give it a go. I downloaded two albums, Aberdeen City; The Freezing Atlantic and Rooney. The albums took nearly 24 hrs to download.
After I received the files, I went into the file manager to check the size of the files...24 meg...EACH! That's right...one album was about 300meg. Compare that with your typical mp3 file of 5 meg per song...and we are talking some serious hard drive space. Apparently the HD they refer to is hard drive, not high definition. Kidding...the quality of these tracks are superb...but, the cost is a bit high for only the tracks and no additional CD artwork or anything like that.
Any suggestions out there that might work for me in Chiner?
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