EMusic - how good is the metal selection?

[SkiBumMSP]

Has anybody on here ever tried that eMusic site? It has me intriqued as it seems to have a huge selection of mostly independent music (from what I've read). I was curious as to how the power/prog metal selections stacked up. If they have a decent selection, it may be worth it for me to pay the $10/month to download 40 non-DRM'd mp3 per month from the site, if at the very least, to try out new music/bands (and try to get the CD's for the ones I really like, just for the better quality as well as to have the lyrics and such on hand).

 

[Jasonic]

YES!!! Highly recommended.
I have gotten lots of good stuff, like BOTH Pyramaze albums there.
It seems like most stuff is there because of what label it is on.
Most Peaceville Records is there.
Best thing to do to search is search for a band.
When you find something, click on "similar bands"
Then you will get an idea of what bands / labels are there.

I had a 3 month trial subscription and loved it!

 

[EDVANTASIA]

Get Emusic immediately. I signed up last month and love it, although I shot my load in a day(90 songs go quickly) I can't recommend this site enough. They got CD's by Rage, Avian, both Pyramaze, Avian,Rhapsody,Jorn,Beyond Twilight,Evergrey and many many more. I have about 40 albums ready to download on my to do list, with many more I want. The songs download quick, and are great quality. My advice is sign up for the 19.99 for 90 songs, as 40 will be gone in minutes. And the best part, you are supporting the bands, not stealing from them. I would like to see more labels or bands sign up for this site like Sensory or Inside out(a couple of their artists are on this site though) F! Itunes, Emusic all the way

 

[SkiBumMSP]

Cool! I'll have to go check it out then. I'll go and take advantage of that "50 free MP3s" offer I keep getting every time I update Winamp. Admittedly, I've been using allofmp3.com quite a bit to check out bands, but would be nice to get hard-to-find music more "legitimatly". Seems none of the record stores around here carry anything even remotely decent in terms of power/prog metal (especially since they took away the F.Y.E. that used to be in the mall here, plus the one independent store closed downtown), plus I just never liked dealing with mail order (I've had my fair share of dealing with wrong/missing orders and the like). I got a huge list of albums that I am going to try to find at ProgPower in the vendor's area.

Finding a good digital download site is handy, preferably one that is legitimate, but won't try to screw me over with rediculous DRM and/or overpriced, crappy quality tracks. Seems eMusic fits the bill for me!

As an aside, kinda funny when I was reading about eMusic, that people/media was trying to make it sound like a "problem" because they can't get the so-called "big 4" labels with thier shitty catalog of "top-40" music on board. Does not sound like a problem to me. In fact, a service not cluttered up with garbage and gives more difficult-to-find bands a chance is a big plus in my book! Amazing how much quality and talented music is out there once you get outside the so called "top 40/mainstream".

Although I have an iPod myself, I do agree with "F! iTunes!". For that matter - F! anything with crap DRM.

Thanks guys for your input!

 

[SkiBumMSP]

Get Emusic immediately. I signed up last month and love it, although I shot my load in a day(90 songs go quickly) I can't recommend this site enough. They got CD's by Rage, Avian, both Pyramaze, Avian,Rhapsody,Jorn,Beyond Twilight,Evergrey and many many more.

I went and just signed up tonight (went for the $20/90 downloads/month plan). I actually ran across your profile to see what you grabbed (I am SkiBumMSP on eMusic just like on here - btw that Beyond Twilight friggan kicks ass!).

However, I am not to impressed with the searching capabilities. I really wish they had something like allofmp3.com with the "those that got this album also downloaded these albums) as well as the "similiar artists" need to be beefed up. Also, I wish they would break down the genres more finely. For example, they lump all the "metal" together. Much like allofmp3.com, I wish they would have broken the sub-genre's down at least one more level, i.e., power metal, black metal, death metel, and so forth. I started to search user profiles that have downloaded the same albums that I have found and see what else they have gotten. For example, I've managed to grab Metalium's Chapter One and Chapter Two albums (they don't have Chapter Three - can't figure that one out), since I've already had Chapter's Four and Five) I went and looked to see who else downloaded those same albums and see what they got. I may have to see if they have a feedback section and submit the above ideas to them.

Anyway, after some digging around, I did find some good stuff, although not nearly what I can find on allofmp3.com (for example, no Brainstorm, but allofmp3.com has it).

However, unlike allofmp3.com, which is very questionalble when it comes to legitimacy, at least eMusic is a fully legitimate, legal site for aquiring music. I got a two-week trial period where I was able to get 50 free MP3s (thanks to that winamp offer). I still got 25 downloads to go, so I'll play around with it a bit more.

EDIT: I just used up my 50 free downloads (now I know what you mean by burning through them in a day!). I definitly found enough to want to at least continue for a month or two (I lined up at least 5 albums just in the past hour or so that I want to get. For example, Anubis Gate is just friggan unreal - definitly some sweet sounding prog-power that I want to get, but ran out of downloads!