Amazon has long been my favorite source of DRM free music, via all the CD’s I buy from them, but they now offer actual mp3 downloads. I won’t go over the details to much, you can read plenty over on Techmeme, but I did want to comment on a few things.
The downloads are DRM free, as I mentioned, and this is a must have feature for any music download service. I like emusic.com for the same reason, and I think it is very cool to see a top tier web site offering the same thing. The price per download is between .89 and .99 depending on the track and whether or not you purchase tracks or a whole album. The price is not terrible, better than iTunes or Yahoo (both of which have DRM), but is no where near the .35 I get from emusic.
Price and DRM aside, I choose my music services based on the availability of the type of music I like on the service. I did some quick searching and I found Amazon’s offering to be moderately ok for the type of music I like (electronica, downtempo, pop, new age, trip hop). I did a search for some of the artists whose music I have recently bought, and was pretty surprised to see at least a small offering of most of the artists.
Hungry Lucy - 1 of 4 albums available
Cranes - 1 album available (not sure how many they have)
Asobi Seksu - Looks like they have the entire collection
Karmacoda - Nada
Lovespirals - Nada (although you can now pre-order their new album from their website)
Barenaked Ladies - 2 Studio albums and a few live (Surprised not to see more)
Corrine Baily Rae - Entire Collection
Autumns Gray Solace - Entire Collection
Hooverphinic - Nada
Morcheeba - Nada
Medwyn Goodall - Lots…he has so many
Steve Roach - Lots
So there it is. With the downloads at 256kbs I can see myself adding this service to my list of places to check when I am looking for new music. I don’t think it will replace emusic as a source of new music.