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VIRTUALISATION Can’t Buy Me Love: online music stores in Australia
VIRTUALISATION Can’t Buy Me Love: online music stores in Australia | Can’t Buy Me Love: online music stores in Australia |
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| by David Swan | |
| Wednesday, 22 July 2009 | |
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With the multitude of online music services on offer, here’s your guide to the top online music stores in Australia, and what they offer (and don’t). In order to help differentiate between the services, I’ve listed the price of the Black Eyed Peas hit ‘Boom Boom Pow’, the cost of the album Michael Jackson Number Ones, and whether or not the services carries the relatively obscure 90’s emo group Sunny Day Real Estate, an indicator as to how broad the service’s range is. iTunes Music Store This behemoth doesn’t really need an introduction. The iTunes Music Store has been singlehandedly responsible for the recent jump in music downloading, thanks largely to the ubiquity of the iPod. The store is very easy on the eye and features some nice preorder bundles and exclusive tracks. Typical of Apple, however, is that the tracks can be a little pricey (they vary between $1.69 and $2.19) and with the files being AAC, they’ll need to be converted if you wish to use a basic MP3 player. + Huge range including exclusive bonus tracks, DRM free - Not in MP3 format, variations in price can be confusing Boom Boom Pow: $2.19 Number Ones: $16.99 Sunny Day Real Estate: Yes bandit.fm This relatively new venture is Sony Music’s venture into the world of online music, but thankfully includes music from other labels, as well. All tracks are DRM free and are available generally for $1.65 a track, with albums priced similarly to iTunes as well. Interestingly, the tracks are of better quality than iTunes’ (320kbps vs 256kbps), and the site is extremely well designed, however the range of music at this stage is still lacking. + High quality tracks, competitive pricing, very nice looking site - Range of music not exhaustive, some gaps Boom Boom Pow: $2.20 Number Ones: $16.99 Sunny Day Real Estate: No Nokia Comes With Music Launched only a few short months ago, the Nokia “Comes with Music” Store is available both for owners of an XpressMusic phone and people casually browsing the web store. This is an option well worth considering if you’re in the market for a new phone, as the XpressMusic phones comes with one year’s worth of unlimited music downloads for free, either through a PC or the phone itself. Not only that, but you get to keep the music after the year’s up, too. The tracks are DRM encoded, though, meaning they’re locked to your phone and/or computer. Also, the site is currently only compatible with Internet Explorer, a large flaw particularly for those of us who rely on Firefox and the like. + Cheap, especially if bundled with a mobile - DRM, songs are 128kbps, website is IE only Boom Boom Pow: $1.69 Number Ones: $16.99 Sunny Day Real Estate: Yes So what other options are out there, and which service comes out on top? And, what is there to look forward to in the future? Read on to find out. CONTINUED Page 2 |
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