3 Cheap Alternatives to iTunes

iTunes is a great service, especially if you intend on buying new releases and Top 40 hits. But I personally don't care about Top 40 hits. I prefer Pink Floyd to the latest Green Day single. Now, iTunes charges a measly $0.99 per song. That doesn't sound like much, but hey, if you want to download 30 singles off a Pink Floyd compilation its gonna cost you 30 dollars. Where can you get it for cheaper?

Luckily, there are some alternatives that I know of. Moreover, these alternatives all allow you to use your downloaded songs in the manner in which you please; i.e. there are no copyright restrictions and obviously the same cannot be said of iTunes. With iTunes, if your hard drive goes bad, you lose your songs thus waste your money. And you can't listen to an iTunes downloaded song on just any mp3 player, of course I'm sure you know that.

eMusic.com

eMusic is a subscription-based mp3 search and download service. You pay $10.00 a month, and for that you can download 30 songs. Remember that if you were to download 30 songs on iTunes, you'd have to pay about $30.00 dollars. By paying 10.00 a month, you get the same number of songs for much cheaper at around 33 cents a pop.

One thing I need to tell you though is that you probably won't find the same Top 40 hits that iTunes features, or new indie releases. You're still probably going to have to use iTunes for those kinds of wants, but eMusic is a much cheaper alternative for those of us who want old classic rock songs, or classical songs, for instance, and want to download around 10-30 a month. That limitation aside, I think that this is a great deal.

Half.com

I'm sure many of you know about Half.com but its such a great site for buying CD's that I wanted to mention it anyway. I recently bought a Rolling Stones album for just $5.99. Per song, it worked out to be cheaper than if I had bought the songs on iTunes. Some people end up purchasing entire CD's, convert them to MP3's and then resell them on Half.com. That sounds like a breach of the user agreement, so I can't condone it, but there it is nonetheless. Half.com should remind you that sometimes buying a real CD, as opposed to digital versions, is more economically feasible. Thats not the case in many instances, but for older music, you really should check out Half.com

Just remember that you'll have to pay for media mail, but that's just around $2.60.

Rhapsody Music Service

Rhapsody Music service brands itself as the "#1 Rated Online Music Service", probably because it sells songs for a mere $0.89. So its just 10 cents cheaper than iTunes. Of course, 10 cents adds up over time and if you're purchasing lots of music, you'd probably want to consider Rhapsody. The best features of Rhapsody actually have little to do with the fact that its a tad cheaper than iTunes for purchasing individual songs. Personally I like the fact that you can upload your own CD's and create your own radio stations from other content and stuff that you uploaded. It's gotten great reviews on Wallstreet Journal and CNET but from what I can tell it doesn't have the same breadth of music available when compared to iTunes.

But again, for those of us who want older songs, Rhapsody should be considered. It'll have all the stuff you or your parents could want, except newer indie stuff and music from the Top 40. One last benefit to this service is the fact that the songs are mp3 downloads and thus are not nearly as restricted as iTunes downloads.

In conclusion, iTunes songs are a tad more expensive, but rather restricted because of copyright restrictions. Rhapsody overall is probably better for many users, including myself.