OK, so obviously I can't be bothered to keep up on blogging regularly. whatever. I figured I'd put this to bed since I get asked about it. I discontinued my membership on emusic because their new pricing model tipped in favor of other means to get music.

You may know by now, a while back they changed everyone's plan, got some major labels to give them some back catalog stuff(super saver bin) and it's a safe bet that that one had something to do with the other. 

I was signed up for the 100 tracks a month for 24.99. And man was it a blast. At that rate I could be adventurous every month with my music selections. The day my account reset was the greatest day of the month. I would tell all my friends "Dude itunes sucks, get hip with emusic..." and a few got on board.

I'll admit the last few months it's been getting harder and harder to find new stuff, And that's probably because I got everything that would possibly interest me, short of acquainting myself with something as challenging as Bluegrass etc... And at 24.99 a month it's almost painful if you don't use those credits and consequently lose them.

So when I logged last month and saw the entire discographies of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest I was surpised and at the original price of my plan, I'd be willing to grab some of the Maiden that was released after 7th son of a 7th son. Small win for major labels, it seemed they are willing to change their business model. I did manage to grab some of the finer Priest albums. Along with some more comparatively obscure items by Foetus, Sanctuary and Hot Snakes.

And of course I wanted more than I could have so I queued up a bunch in the "save for later" bin.

This month rolls around and I haven't been paying attention to the blogowebz on what the heck was going on so when I log in I'm greeted with the "Hey man, you have 50 trax...and fuck you" Well of course it didn't say that, but that's what it felt like. Me, a loyal customer was sold out and kicked to the curb so that emusic could go make nice nice with the major labels. HOORAY.  So I downloaded my 50 tracks and cancelled my account. 

If Emusic were a publicly traded company I may be able to make sense of all this. After all, profit and growth is the direction you need to go or the share price goes down and you'll eventually get fired for doing a "poor job". But they're not, so the only thing I can think of is that their trying for an IPO or selling the company or something. Because sucking up to the crappy majors doesn't make sense to me in any other scenario. They weren't enhancing their offering really by incorporating the majors super saver bin. I mean if I REALLY wanted Priest I could get it used on CD for around $5 and have the cool artwork to boot.

The content they put up every month in regards to reviews leads me to believe they were quite in tune with their customers. They knew who they are, the more adventurous music consumption enthusiast. And clearly they just decided it was just too darned hard to compete with ITunes or Amazon on price and selection. This is a the tragedy of the year.

So now I am without a music service as I predict a lot of enthusiasts are. I really have no idea what to do. I buy stuff from amazon, but It's about 80 times harder to find cool stuff because you have to wade through the crap to get there. Emusic put it right out there in front of you.

In conclusion, thank you emusic for helping me discover some great metal, great indie pop, and bringing back all the SST stuff I had on cassette and lost over a series of apartment moves. And you know, honestly the old Priest albums aren't bad. Good luck in your IPO.