KLSU alumni.net

What is the best site for downloading music? Opinions??

Hey, Tiffany!

I had a "trial" membership with emusic.com last year, and I was somewhat impressed with their selection. It's a pay site - I'm not sure of the exact conditions (I quit before I had to pay, but I got pretty much everything I wanted) but I think it's 50 downloads a month at $9.95. Something like that.

They have an interesting selection of eclectic music... which was what grabbed my attention in the first place. Among the bands I found there were Sonic Youth, Kahimi Karie/Momus, Apples in Stereo, Autechre, Amon Tobin, etc. Usually they would secure a record label and start bringing over various artists' catalogues from that label. For example, the entire Matador Records catalogue is available for download. They had a lot of trip hop (DJ this, DJ that) and electronic available, which is pretty much all I grabbed before the trial membership ended.

If you have a PC, you may want to try Kazaa.com - I have a Macintosh, and last time I checked (it's been a very long time, now that I think of it) they didn't support us Mac users. But if you have a PC you may have success there... some of my friends at work swore up and down by it.

Hope this helps!

-barry

Thanks, Barry! Good to know you're still alive and kicking. Yes, I had Kazaa on my old computer, and the old version didn't have all the pop-ups and spyware but I got a new hard drive and don't want to download the new one. I'll try emusic.

Ahh, I forgot about the spyware. Last week I had to open the stupid PC registry to get rid of all the spyware (ten items!) - or "foistware", as it's called - that I got from downloading ONE freeare MP3 ripper. Took me four hours to disinfect the thing, I really hate that...

eMusic is a little weird in that they may list an artist, but when you go you'll see that only one or two albums (and maybe obscure ones at that) are listed. Example: Stereolab. With all the wonderful albums they've released in the 1990's, the only items eMusic has are "Peng" and the other really super-early one. You may find this a lot, but still there is a tremendous amount of cool stuff there.

Seeya!

-barry

I usually find good stuff on usenet. The binaries group alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.indie has full album uploads, usually months before release. Being a binaries newsgroup, it requires a pay-to-play news host (giganews is like $8/month), and the mostly pre-release tunes are often addled preview mixes, but at least it's an actual matching full album of addled preview mix. Fair, really.