I think Spotify has won me over.  Seems like a lot of value for $9.99 per month.  Matthew Dixon mentioned Spotify to me and Carol at Jireh this summer, but I thought,

“I have tons of music already. Why more?

I listen to a lot of independent music – by that I mean artists who own their own music.  They don’t have a contract with a label.  They own their own label and they put their music in the electronic music distribution system through CD Baby or another distributor like that.  I’ve been an eMusic user because it is considerably cheaper than buying tracks on iTunes – but everything is not there.  The music that is winning this year’s Grammy Awards is not there, at least not the music that’s winning the most popular categories.  That’s OK, because that’s not my taste anyways.

I listen to lots of jazz and lots of gospel and I can find that on eMusic.  It’s been a great website for discovering new artists.  Example – I knew about Esperanza Spalding and Gretchen Parlato long before they were mainstream – because of eMusic.  When Gretchen sings on Lionel Loueke’s album you discover a new artist (new to you) in one direction or another because everything is linked – you can find every track on eMusic that Gretchen Parlato sings on.

Back to Spotify (last two paragraphs has been on eMusic). Spotify is a streaming music service, and I thought, “I’m not always online.  I can’t afford to use a cellular data plan to stream music when I’m in my car”.  But apparently, you can download tracks to your computer or iPhone, iPad and then plug it into your car stereo and take Spotify music with you that way.

So, this is my last month of $11.99 US eMusic, which at 49 cents per track buys me 24 tracks, Spotify Premium costs $9.99 per month and it gives you unlimited streaming and I don’t know how many tracks, but probably all you need.  I’m guessing that the tracks you download with Spotify are in the format that the Spotify app uses.  This prevents piracy where I take my favourite tracks and make mix CDs for all my friends.  (not that I ever did that with eMusic)

This FAQ explains the Spotify model in terms of how artists get paid for their music quite well: http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify-explained/