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[Lister]

Well us geeks have to stick together, right?

Not necessarily.  They make Astroglide for that.

[Carlos del Vaca]

I have recently signed up with eMusic and I think I like it.  They have a two-week trial in which you get 50 free tracks (at least it was when I signed up--their splash page seems to have a different number every time).  Thereafter, for $9.99 a month you get 40 tracks, so basically 3 or so full-length albums for less than the price of one disc each month (they do expire if you don't use them over the course of the month though).  MP3s, copyable anywhere, no DRM crap.  I know wombat said she doesn't want a subscription service, but I think it's a good deal.  Pretty good selection of indie stuff, and they're building up a good back catalog--I just downloaded Fugazi's Repeater.

If anyone's interested, PM me your e-mail address--I get bonus downloads if I refer anyone who signs up.  The referral page says you get the 50 freebies for the trial, so there you go.

[CortJstr]

I've been an eMusic member since '99 and I've been happy with them. They also offer a yearly plan that costs 20% less than the monthly. I recently did 1 year at 65 tracks/mo to get some back-catalog stuff I'd been eyeing then dropped back to 40/month after that to just keep up with new and new-to-me stuff.

[Emmoh]

Signed up for the free eMusic about a year ago, they had a live CD of a great local band who may never record an actual CD, had a bunch of downloads left over, so looked around a bit. Still had stuff I desperately wanted when I ran out, so I got the 10 dollar program. Took about 10 days before I decided to upgrade my account to the $20/mo. I swear by it now. (Though, if you don't use your downloads by the end of the month, they don't rollover, so for the situation you described, you might want to stick to a pay per download program. I've heard more than a couple people rave about that Russian site (I'm assuming it's the same one))

[pmcd9]

I had the most amazing dream last night

I forgot to mention why I posted my dream in this thread (not that anyone was interested enough to make a comment), but I wanted to tell Wombat that I agree it's nice to actually have the records (CDs) so you can check out the liner notes and pictures of the band and what not, but if you are like me, you can't read the liner notes anyway because they print everything so terribly small.  that's one thing I really miss about old time records, the size of the pictures.  I think the downloads should come with 12" Vinyl sized liner notes, sent via the mail*. 

~Paul

*For a modest fee.

[wombat]

Ah!

Yes, I am an old-timer and like to have liner notes etc too.  At this point I'm mostly only looking to buy things I already have on vinyl, so I have that stuff (the large print version!).  Given our previous discussions of buying used books and copying CDs, you can probably guess that I would only buy stuff from the Russians that I'd already bought legitimately at some time.  God knows that Bruce Springsteen will still be able to put food on the table if I don't buy "Tunnel of Love" in a royalty-generating way a second time in my life.

I'd also like to be able to buy one or two songs of bands I haven't heard so I can figure out if I want to buy the actual CD.  But I still can't imagine doing this often enough to warrant a subscription service.

[miles]

I might get shot for saying it, but for big, major label acts (like Bruce Springsteen), a service like BMG can be a good deal.  I think in the end it works out to be like $5-$8 a CD.

[CortJstr]

Back when eMusic charged 99-cents a track or $9.99 an album (the olden days, before we knew better) they would occasionally have a pdf of the liner notes you could download. The only one I actually snagged was TMBG - Long Tall Weekend.