Music

Well, it’s old news to us, but according to Reuters eMusic is officially launching its Europe service; it appears that eMusic is trying to take advantage of the hype around Apple’s announcements today to try to position itself as the dominant iTunes alternative in the minds of the mainstream media. Some interesting new tidbits from the article: EMusic will be the first service to launch in all 25 European Union member nations, going head-to-head with iTunes in big markets such as Germany and Britain and bringing the first legal downloading to smaller ones including Malta and Hungary. . . . ...

Stereophile just published an online article “Naxos: Classical in the Key of MP3” with more information on the MPkey collections from Naxos and eMusic. Along with providing a complete list of the MPkey collections to be released, it has some insight into the marketing strategy behind MPkey: On examining iTunes track lists for Naxos CDs, Naxos discovered that most downloaders buy The Very Best of Mozart and assorted wedding samplers rather than recordings of hardcore repertoire. . . . MPkey’s first 12 titles are thus geared toward the downloading neophyte rather than the classical aficionado. ...

I’ve added a new page to the Swindleeeee!!!!! site, “Pakman speaks,” with links to published interviews and other comments by David Pakman, President and CEO of eMusic. Thanks to Google I unearthed some interesting and lesser known items, including in particular an audio interview with Pakman very soon after he came to eMusic. I’ll keep this updated as new Pakman-related articles get published.

This is Money, a UK web site by the publisher of the Daily Mail newspaper, recently published an article “The Best Music Download Sites,” in which they rated the iTunes Music Store, Napster, MySpace, SpiralFrog, PlayLouder (a UK-specific service), the online sites for Virgin and HMV, and band and label sites in general. eMusic received the highest rating (5 stars), along with the iTunes Music Store. The article references the new eMusic UK pricing, mentions iPod compatibility (but not the use of the MP3 format and the lack of DRM restrictions), characterizes eMusic as being for “fans of indierock, modern classical and jazz,” and delivers the overall verdict “Excellent site for the true collector.” ...

Courtesy of Google News I found an interesting story in the Wall Street Journal apparently about a new Naxos initiative in partnership with eMusic. It’s behind the subscriber wall and (as a non-subscriber) I couldn’t see the full text, but I managed to get the following tidbit: On Tuesday, classical label Naxos will unveil a dozen new albums in a line it’s calling MPkey. The albums are packaged in CD-sized boxes and will be placed on store shelves at Borders. Inside each box, however, customers will find not a CD but a card with an access code and a booklet of instructions for downloading the album from eMusic. ...