I finally got around to investigating (OK, needing) some of the legal music downloading services yesterday and so far I have to give the edge to iTunes.

Napster gives you three free days of its premium service when you first sign up, which is pretty sweet because it lets you listen to full tracks instead of clips. I should say it's pretty sweet in theory because it doesn't work with all tracks. But what's worse is that Napster didn't even have the artist I was looking for, which is, well, really lame. Granted Rachael Yamagata isn't a household name yet (definitely check her out if you like Norah Jones or Fiona Apple) but everyone from Barnes & Noble and Borders to Tower Records and Sam Goody carries her debut EP. This truly is an almost unforgivable fault in my eyes. No respectable music service should be scooped by every mainstream mall record store and bookstore.

Musicmatch, which has long been my favorite player, does offer the fabulous Rachael Yamagata but I never even finished installing the program because they insisted that I either pay $20 to upgrade to the new Musicmatch Jukebox 8.2 or install the basic version and lose the capabilities of my current Musicmatch Plus Jukebox. Whatever. Are these people completely in the dark? They're trying to win over people who've been getting a universal selection of music for free and they want to charge $20 out of the gate? Next.

iTunes had the album, everything was cake. Downloads are faster than on Napster (on my PC at least). They didn't put up any roadblocks. Didn't make me pay for anything but the music I want. I've heard some people complain about the interface but I think it's fine. The only problem I have with iTunes is that you can't buy hidden tracks individually. It forces you to purchase the entire album for $9.95 which in the case of this 5-song EP ends up costing a few dollars more than I would pay to buy the actual album anywhere else. Not sure yet if the other services let you buy hidden tracks.

So here's a lesson in e-commerce: Both Napster (despite its flaws) and iTunes are sitting on my desktop just waiting for my future one-click music buying needs. Musicmatch might be the best damn service on the market once it's up and running but I'll never know because they got greedy and insisted on that $20 upfront fee. Same goes for Rhapsody because the last I heard that service required an advance $10 fee. That's word of mouth. I never even went to the site to check it out. For either to gain my future business they now have the uphill battle not only of remedying their pricing model but also of effectively marketing that change so I find out about it.

The good news for all of them is that I'll never even think about using Wal-Mart's service -- and as my year-end PSA I'll urge all of you to refrain also. Wal-Mart is a blight on American society. Please don't be part of the problem. ;)

By the way, that album proved impossible to buy in the "real" world. I actually went out to purchase the physical copy and despite the fact the all the stores I mentioned above do carry it, not one had it in stock in the store.

December 22, 2003