Inspirational Technology

eMusic - Crack for the music addict

I just subscribed to eMusic and man I'm addicted already. I was skeptical about it since it's owned by a major media company and was offering supposedly unrestricted MP3s. Well it looks like they are really standard MP3s, 128kps which kinda sucks but isn't horrible. This is key to me though, I simply refuse to use any service that puts DRM on the music files. Not because I want to share them, but because I want to be able to use them for my own use including copying them to any machine that I own. The service is $9.95 per month for supposedly unlimited downloads. We'll see how long it lasts before they screw it up.

The best thing, they make it easy to download an entire album and there's software available to do this on Mac OS X called Pickup. I'm only ever interested in entire albums, which is why I've never been much for the music download scene. Well that and the fact that the music I'm most interested in is anything but popular.

I own about 2500 CDs and about 1000 records, but I have an insatiable thirst for different kinds of music in obscure genres and so far eMusic has plenty of that to offer. If you want anything that appears on the top 40 charts, you can forget it because you won't find it there, but if you like classic Jazz, blues, electronic music, punk or world beat there's a ton of stuff available. I mean come on, you've just got to love a site where Son House can make the top 20 most popular albums list. Yeah man, I loves me some Son House. It's funny too, the Son House Revisted CD set was one of the last CDs I've purchased and eMusic actually has it online, amazing. Try finding Son House using Limewire or brethren, ain't gonna happen. Even better they have all the Fat Possum blues artists available, this means R.L. Burnside, Robert Belfour and the man with the killer last name Junior Kimbrough. I own a ton of these guy's recordings on vinyl, but haven't been able to listen to them since I sold all my high end audio gear when I went back to school. I'm listening to a freshly burned copy of Robert Belfour's one album right now, I've missed being able to listen to it. R.L. Burnside's Ass Pocket Full of Whiskey is next on the playlist.

Anyway, there's a huge amount of classic stuff available. Of particular interest is the Complete Riverside Recordings box sets for people like Thelonious Monk and Art Tatum. I've wanted to be able to listen to this stuff for a long time, but those sets are like $150 each. Even when I was spending a lot of money on CDs that was a little steep for me. Now they're all a simple download away. I've already started with Volume 1 of the Art Tatum solo sessions. Oh yeah they also have lots of Jimmy Smith, love that organ grinder swing of Jimmy Smith. Again gives me an opportunity to get some stuff that I have only on vinyl in digital form.

Beyond the classic stuff, there's also a ton of really interesting electronic music available. In particular I snatched all the Theivery Corporation I could find and came across a really sweet group called Jeep Jazz Project. And Tom Waits, yep that's right the last two Tom Waits albums are available (actually 3, but I already have Mule Variations on CD).

Some other artists from day one, Big Joe Turner, Ella Fitzgerald, Issac Hayes (Shaft baby, yeah I can dig it), James Brown, John Lee Hooker, Louis Armstrong, Mike Bloomfield, Ravi Shankar, Tricky and yep Motorhead. Some new stuff, Outcast, Metaphor, Scorn, Tribe of Twelve and Margot Leverett. Also dug up recordings of Hindemith's cello sonatas and Requiem, both works I've wanted to hear for a long time.

Hopefully eMusic makes it and they don't end up screwing up the service like so many others. Right now there's so much music there that I've always wanted to listen to, I love it.