Online music...

I've been experimenting with several different legal music providers and I figured I'd pass on what I learned. So without any further ado, let's begin...

1) iTunes
It's well known, fairly easy to use. I use it as my default player for all music, but it can get pretty expensive. Songs range from $0.99 to $1.29 each. That said, there is a wide variety of music with plenty of new-releases and more obscure songs. They have a couple of free downloads each week that come out with new releases on Tuesday.

2) Napster
Now a fully legal music provider you pay a subscription service that allows you to download a certain number of songs and listen to most of the music for free (without downloading) online. This is great if you have constant internet connection. A few songs only play 30 second samples, but they're in the minority. Also, check out some of their awesome playlists-- free to listen to and a great way to find new music.

3)Amazon
Amazon has a wide selection of downloadable tunes. Their prices are very similar to iTunes, but they have daily deals where you can snap up albums for as low as $2.99. Similarly they have lots of music (and sometimes entire label sampler albums) for free.

4) Emuisc
They offer a subscription service where you pay a certain amount of month and can download so many songs. As I type this I'm downloading their specific music downloader to take advantage of my 15 free songs. I was excited because their songs are about $0.50 each. Unfortunately, I'm having a difficult time using my free 15 songs. It seems like just about everything I want is not on Emusic. I searched for "Choking You" by Prefuse-73 and "Rude Boy" by Rihanna. They're lacking Sarah McLachlan's latest album. They do have all of Loreena McKennitt's music, but I have all of hers already. Ah, at last. They have "Her Morning Excellence" by Oren Lavie. They've got an older/more obscure set of songs. That said, I'm enjoying searching for songs... not sure I'll subscribe, but I can't complain about free, legal music.