Downloads - how to decide

Hi everyone,

I'm really new at this. My Meizu was picked out for me as a gift in December. And while I just love it I'm already getting tired of my songs and would like to get some new ones. My internet searches just leave me more confused. Should I go with a service like MusicETC or MyMusicInc? I read some of the reviews for these places and I couldn't help but think that an employee wrote them. And just exactly what am I buying? I read the words but I don't understand. Am I just buying the software to download the music and the cost of the music is extra? I don't even know what questions to ask. For example I had to look up "P2P" on Wikipedia. Sorry for the dumb questions. I'm just trying to understand.

ANY help is appreciated!

Well, there's a whole lot of ways to download popular music for free, but that is in most cases illegal (basically P2P). I have no problems with that, but you might.

If you're willing to try out music from independent artist I would recommend you to take a look at Amie Street, eMusic, and Magnatune. But most of that music costs money (although not everything at Amie Street does).

You should also take a look at Creative Commons music search for free and legal music, and you can find a whole lot more music stores and places to get free legal music at DefectiveByDesign.org's guide, and on this list

I would also highly recommend that you take a look at all the great netcasts over at Odeo! You can learn a whole lot by subscribing to some interesting netcasts. Personally I use my miniPlayer much more to listen netcasts than to music.
I will especially recommend: On the Media, Democracy Now!, CounterSpin, TEDTalks, NPR: Story of the Day, EFF: Line Noise, BBC's In Our Time. Just search for them over at Odeo.

Good luck!

Someday, these sites you get digital music from by paying for it online better add an option to download lossless versions of songs for the price you have to pay. You're paying the equivalent of getting the completely lossless version from a CD if you bought that instead.

Some years ago audigalaxy was an illegal p2p but now it's offering a lot of free music from independant labels and their Rhapsody-Radio.
Try http://www.audiogalaxy.com/ .... not so bad and free and legal

In a year or two all these musicstores will be free. I read in the newspaper that they plan to finance this by adding ads to the site.

DChronos: You're right! Amie Street is working on adding both Ogg Vorbis (lossy, but better than mp3) and FLAC (lossless) versions to their store.

Have a look at the band's websites - very often they let you download a few tracks to listen to. Also browse around myspace - there is SOOO much music there, especially from new bands.

try allofmp3.com fo veryr low priced, high speed, high quality downloads with a huge selection of music

Im not sure if i will get warned or banned for this... google up limewire and download this p2p music program... Try others such as torrentspy.com for bittorrent files and also there is Mirc. Good luck

i've started getting my collection together legally.. just go to ebay, buy your favorite CD's.. and you'll end up paying less than a dollar a song for PERMANENT LOSSLESS versions of your music.. with FLAC, i'll always have CD perfect audio i can convert to any new format they want...

+1 for allofmp3!!!

Soon (within this month) we will be able to use subscription-based services.