Continue reading »]]> If, like me, you’re one of those people who still purchase MP3s, this site may be of interest to you.

It’s called MP3Puzzled, and it allows you to compare prices of MP3 downloads from various legitimate retailers – such as iTunes and Amazon.

You can even view how the prices have changed historically – which is both pointless and kind of handy at the same time!

In any case, it’s a handy, free little tool that I thought I’d mention.

Continue reading »]]> Spotify, a big player in the music industry, has now introduced MP3 purchases.

They originally had it so the software could link you to sites such as 7digital, but it now looks like they are offering direct MP3 purchases.

The new Spotify update allows you to purchase tracks which you can keep forever. They are in MP3 format so they can be placed on any MP3 player or iPod. All purchased music is stored in your music directory and can also be accessed from Spotify.

It looks like the new concept is ran in partnership with 7digital, as the EULA mentions 7digital and their logo is shown.

Looks interesting – I won’t ever use it because I’m going to keep my Spotify Premium membership going as it works seamlessly with my iPod Touch. I doubt many long term Spotify premium users will use the new feature, but it might be handy for free users. Nevertheless, it is a nice addition to Spotify.

Continue reading »]]> In the past, I’ve used many different music download services. 

I used Napster first, which in general was good, but very short lived after I discovered their credit card fraud issues. When I used Napster, I only really used it for buying music to burn to CD but not really for MP3 players because at that time I didn’t own a very decent one.

Then after I closed my account with Napster, I didn’t use any music download service for a while.

When someone bought me an iPod earlier in the year, I started using iTunes. I received a £15 voucher with it so I played around a bit and rented some films as well as downloaded music. I’m not a huge fan of iTunes but the service itself is generally reliable and apart from the fact you have to use an iPod with iTunes, it’s pretty good. Of course there is the problem that iTunes (and Napster) are both DRM sites so you wont get DRM free music.

Then I tried the Orange Music Store (since my phone is with Orange) and that’s slightly more dissapointing but still good enough for most people. The application itself that you have to use to download music is quite buggy and can cause some problems, but I find it useful that if you download the song that you want from your phone, it will automatically send it to your PC (and vice versa). There is still the DRM problem, though.

And finally I recently started using Non-DRM sites. I like 7digital.com because they sell MP3′s that you can buy with SMS payment, although it is £1.50 per song apposed to the average 79p per song in most stores. 

What sites do you use for buying music? Do you like them?