Forget the Ukraine Girls and Try This Russian Site to Really Get Knocked Out

When CD's replaced albums the leap forward in sound quality was tremendous. There were many other benefits, like the ability to program songs in the order you wanted, the shuffle play feature and the ability with a multi-disc player to play several CDs in one sitting without damaging the discs, unlike albums which would come down with a thud on top of one another if you loaded up more than one on your stereo.

But the technology upgrade was not without its drawbacks. CDs cost substantially more than albums when they were first released. Many audio enthusiasts felt that digital was inferior to analog in recording certain percussion sounds. Some loved the smaller size of the CDs but I missed the feeling of holding an album in my hands.

To me, opening up a plastic container to get a CD was so inferior to holding an album and letting the vinyl record drop into your hands. The entire presentation of the album exceeded the CD, from the size, the space for cover art, the feel and, if you were lucky, the added features that could be included with an album. The days of a Sgt. Pepper cut-out page, or Alice Cooper's "School's Out", which came wrapped in pink underwear and could fold into an actual desk, were over with the introduction of the CD.

Now, MP3s are doing to compact discs what the CD did to the album. Perhaps there's a generation of kids nostalgic about the CD as I was vinyl, but I'm not one of them.

As I transition to MP3s, I am glad to be rid of jewel cases that crack easier than the Bengals' defense, discs that were not nearly as flawless as promised and yes, even the bulk of a CD collection. CDs managed the rare feat of losing the impressiveness of an album's size while maintaining the inconvenience of storing and transporting a (relatively) big package.

Some people are turned off completely by the lack of something tangible, besides the player, of MP3s. Surprisingly, this does not bother me in the slightest. I love the ability to carry and trade vast quantities of music all with just a tiny player and a flash drive.

My only complaint with MP3s is their cost. For those who like to buy a complete album, why should they have to pay CD-level prices when MP3s come with virtually no overhead or shipping costs built in? If you only buy a single song or two, $0.99 is a decent price. But if you want the entire 15-song output, $14.85 seems excessive.

Well, if you like to stick it to The Man, or simply have no qualms about doing something of questionable legality, I have a solution to this problem.

The Russian Web site musicmp3.ru is a fantastic site to buy MP3s. Their standard rate is $0.15 per song and if you buy an entire album, they give you a 10 percent discount on the purchase price.

Now, you may be hesitant to deal with a Russian company but let me assure you that the level of service has been top-notch all around. If you were going to build a business of any type, you would be well served by imitating this one, as the quality of what they deliver is excellent, the price is exceptional and the customer service is first-rate.

To get started with musicmp3.ru, all you need to do is create an account and fund it with PayPal. The site requires an upfront payment before you can purchase any songs. It has three different levels of initial payment with the least expensive being $29.99 - or about what you would pay for two CDs. And you'll get roughly 20 times that amount of music from this site.

Navigating the site is easy. You can search for music by artist or song. The site has all different genres of music and an impressive selection from each artist. Since it is a Russian site, it also has compilations not readily available in this country. You can listen to a small snippet of the song before purchase and many newer releases contain reviews. Each album page includes list of songs, MP3 file size and running time of the song.

If the song or album you are looking for is not available, you can make a request of the site to add your selection to its collection. I have made seven requests and six of them have been filled, so that seems pretty good. And when they fill a request, they frequently add many selections by the artist, not just the one for which you specifically asked.

Once you make your purchase, the songs are available for you to download immediately. You have up to 24 hours to copy the songs. The copying process is a bit cumbersome without a program specifically designed for this purpose but even adding the tracks individually you can copy a 10-song album in about three minutes. And if you ever downloaded songs from Napster that is light years better than what you experienced there.

The site boasts 300,000 MP3 tracks with new songs added daily. The sound quality is 192 kbps and each song comes with detailed MP3 tags. And unlike Napster or similar sites, the songs are guaranteed to be complete.

I make no claims to the legitimacy of this site. The fact that it is based in Russia probably tells you all you need to know on that score. I can tell you that my experiences have been overwhelmingly positive and I'm listening to more music now than I have in ages. And that's what it's all about in the end.