Compare Music Downloads
August 14, 2009
iTunes has long since dominated the music download market, superseding Wal-Mart to become the most popular music retailer. It’s not surprising either considering the process has been purposefully constructed to be as simple as possible for impulse purchases. However, this convenience often comes at a cost, as alternative download sites are frequently cheaper, available in a more universal format and sometimes even a higher bit rate than what Apple offer. Therefore, the frugal music lover still wants music quickly, conveniently, and legally but most importantly, cheaply. Comparing the price between multiple music download sites may be considered a laborious task and seem too much like hard work for some, but help is finally at hand.
Compare Download is a service designed to compare the price of music download services; not dissimilar to price comparison websites such as Price Runner. Having searched for a few artists already, I’ve found that the initial results are a little bewildering as singles are mixed with albums, as well as compilations that the artist appears on. Still, there are useful filters to reduce the results to singles or albums and the option to sort the results by price or user ratings. Proceeding on to a specific album, the results page indicates clearly which retailers ‘stock’ the track/album along with the price in a useful table. However, I feel that this could be further improved by showing the available bit rates and file format the download is available in from each retailer.
The site carries advertising from TuneTribe, a music download site. However, far from showing any form of bias, TuneTribe didn’t show up in the results for La Roux’s album, despite not only being offered by TuneTribe, but also cheaper than the alternatives. With a link directly to the product page, it arguably makes comparing and buying music easier. It’s not going to beat the simplicity of iTunes, but considering I hold grudges for the DRM hypocrisies that Apple pushed for years, I’m grateful of the site for not only making it simpler to compare, but also find other download services offering the music I want.
Thanks @munishp
I’ll admit, I tend to forget about anywhere else, despite iTunes being able to load non-DRM’ed MP3s onto my iPhone… as you rightly say, iTunes is very geared to the impulse buy – especially with the iPhone UI and Shazam linking to it, all on the phone…
Now all I have to do is remember to use it when there’s a track I want to buy, rather than just tapping through to iTunes!
I’ve only ever bought one album from iTunes, and that’s because it wasn’t available elsewhere. For me, it’s not just about price, even with iTunes Plus, I disagree with how they continued to blame the music industry for DRM when other retailers were offering DRM free music from the same labels. It’s left people with masses of DRM filled music, and turned into nothing more than a con by Apple to shackle people into their market.