The CD is taking a spot next to the cassette tape as a cultural relic. The future of music retailing is, like so much else, an online proposition. And while the hulking Wal-Mart of the music marketplace is still iTunes, the hipper Target is eMusic. The site has lined up 4,000 independent labels and outsells competitors Rhapsody, MSN Music, and Napster combined, making it the second-biggest digital music vendor.
The upstart got there by offering what the others don’t: deep catalogs from indie darlings like Cat Power, Danger Doom, and Sufjan Stevens, at much lower prices (about 25 cents a song if you use all your downloads under the subscription plan) and without the hassles of digital rights management. Discover a terrific new band, buy a track, and you can easily email the song to friends. All tracks are sold in MP3 format, which can be played on almost any portable player – not just the iPod – and they can be copied and shared as many times as buyers want. That’s in stark contrast to the restrictions watermarked on Apple’s downloads (such is the price of playing with the major labels). Sure, eMusic still lags far behind iTunes: It sells just 4.5 million tracks a month compared to Apple’s estimated 60 million. But it’s sure to be big in Europe – countries like France and Denmark are notoriously anti-DRM – when it launches there later this month.
– Sonia Zjawinski
Music Reborn
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The Pitchfork Effect
[Coming Aug 28]
