We were promised a music purchasing revolution in the digital age. Companies like Napster tried, but they got bogged down in the legalities and were forced to revert back to the expensive pay-per-track system. Bands like Radiohead also attempted to transform the music industry by letting fans choose how much they’d pay for albums, but too many fans abused the system. While these approaches clearly had their day, neither of these new ways to own music has really stuck. That’s why I was surprised to learn that there has been a website in business for almost three years that serves as an alternative to the behemoths like iTunes.
A week ago, I randomly stumbled onto the website AmieStreet.com while I was searching for information on an Avant Garde string duo (they’re called Chess, for what it’s worth, and they’re awesome). I didn’t understand why the CD was selling for $10 on Napster’s newer, legal software and only $1.65 on Amie Street. My first thought, naturally, was that it was either illegal or malware. The answer, however, is demand based pricing. Every track on the website starts off, at most, 10 cents (often free). Then as people download it, recommend it, or listen to clips of it, the website uses an equation to gauge the demand for the song. As the demand increases so does the price; individual tracks top out at 99 cents. So in my case, Chess clearly didn’t have a popular album. The pro to this approach is really fresh, young music being just a click (and sometimes a free click) away; the corresponding con is that there is a lot of bad music to weed through. But the hunt is exhilarating.
No matter what you’re into, this website has it hidden somewhere in its depths. From The John Betsch Society to John Doe to John Wilkes Booth, even John Lee Hooker. For those of you unfamiliar with this cast of characters, they’re très different. Because Amie Street isn’t just interested in new, hip, experimental and sometimes admittedly ill produced music, Mos Def, The Eels, Belle and Sebastian, and the Barenaked Ladies all have albums and tracks on AmieStreet.com. They have an impressive Blues/Jazz section as well as a pretty good Comedy section filled with famous artists. And to be honest, if you ever want a copy of a classical work, I would check this website for a free or cheap version before I looked elsewhere. Rap, Electronica, Bluegrass, and Religious are very well represented. The separation between these genres is immense and yet they all have a home on Amie Street.
I spent four hours on this website the first day I stumbled upon it. I decided that in order to keep myself from blowing tons of money really quickly, I would make a wish list and then pick and choose what I wanted to initially purchase. When you register, the website sends you a playlist of 75 popular downloaded songs for free. Weeding through them revealed great artists that I added to my list, and couldn’t wait to hear more from. The first thing I did was import my Pandora.com preferences (you can also use Facebook, Last.fm, Songza, Hypemachine, and even iTunes). They used my station seeds and the artists I most frequently “liked” to give me recommendations; using the recommendations and blanket genre searches I had quickly garnered a wish list more unwieldy than I had anticipated. I also stumbled upon some truly awful music (think: your next door neighbor’s poorly produced piano renditions of church hymns), but the website really wants to help you discover their artists. After you play a series of clips there is always a pop-up screen that gives you more recommendations from every price range, not just the best sellers. Sure it was off a few times – the program seemed convinced that I loved Caribbean style Electro-Pop and it also thinks that Queen and The Decemberists sound similar – but overall each recommendation added three or four more artists to my list.
Now to purchase. The decision to weed out a bunch of the music was hard. I saved all the artists that I wasn’t completely sold on for later, and just purchased a few. My decisions were based not only on my reactions to the songs but on the artists’ statements that AmieStreet.com provides and price. I had a few albums from multiple price ranges (I freely admit it bothers me when I don’t own complete albums), and I was ready to start purchasing. The way I usually shop for anything is by deciding the maximum I’d be willing to pay for it and then if the price is actually lower or comparable, I purchase it. One of the artists I had put on my wish list, Byron Pace, was good and I enjoyed his music, however it wasn’t love. But I had said that I would be willing to pay $2.50 for the 6-track album, and it was free. So I purchased it. Immediately afterwards I felt so….so…douchey. In front of my very eyes the price of the album jumped from $0.00 to $0.90. While that doesn’t seem like much, I knew that the demand based system meant that I might have just discouraged someone from purchasing his music who could have grown into a true fan. Since then some of the songs have grown on me more but I still don’t love it as much as my Sylvie Lewis purchase, or Consumption Junction, or Jukebox the Ghost.
When you purchase a song or album, first it takes you to your cart. You can purchase the music straight away, or you can decide to pre-pay your future purchases too and then they give you website credit. For instance, if you add $10 to your account, you actually get $12.50 that can be spent on music. The best deal, however is pre-paying $75 and getting $25 of website credit. That’s a lot of music on this website. This deal is only good if you know you’ll be haunting the website like I plan on doing. At this time I decided to forgo the pre-pay option due to funds, although I imagine eventually I’ll take advantage of the system.
After you complete the transaction you get reverted to a download screen. Everything for each artist or album is put into a .zip folder to download so you do need the appropriate software to access your new music (I use AlZip). Once you’ve extracted it to wherever you keep your music on your computer you can add it to whatever music player platform you use (I use Windows Media Player). It comes with all the album art and you can burn it onto discs as many times as you want. Your computer crashes and you lost all your music? AmieStreet.com lets you re-download it later. You can also listen online. Once you purchase music if you visit the listing you can hear the songs in full, and not just the clips others can hear. You can also listen to the full songs by accessing your “Library” from any internet connection.
Exploring this website was half the fun of the music. It’s also extremely time consuming. Pulling myself away from it long enough to write this review has been difficult, to say the least. What was most surprising about this website was that it has been in existence for as long as it has and no one I talked to about it had heard of it. This isn’t the digital revolution I was imagining, but it’s not only legal the bands that utilize it are grateful that their songs are being heard. I am more than happy to oblige.
This has a great basis, but I think it's too dry. The good stuff (I might have just discouraged someone else from purchasing the .90 cent cd) gets lost amongst some of the stuff that would be better left to a short list or the site itself.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see more.
Actually, I think you have a lot of useful info here, and I like your style, but I think it's a little long for a review. I found myself skipping over sentences sometimes because I wanted to get to the part where you say whether you like the site or not. So, I don't think more is the key, but less. I really like all the examples of bands you give, and some of it is really funny.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Janika, I like your style. When I first looked at this piece, I scrolled a little and thought "Whoa, this is really long" and did a little groan. But when I read it, I was pretty much engrossed, and didn't think about the length.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Amanda, though, and I think that some of your experience and opinion (like your "douchey" moment) get a little lost in the technical stuff. I guess just decide if you want this to be a super technical review, or if you want to comment on the effectiveness, etc. of the service rather than the service itself.
I agree with the previous posts that the style is fresh but length is prohibitive. I would condense all of the procedural stuff by comparing it to other services like iTunes: "...if you are familiar with iTunes, then you will have no problem." You could then go on to briefly point out what's cool and distinctive about it, like the pre-pay option and the computer crashing bit.
ReplyDeleteI think you also might lean more heavily on the theme of cost being driven by demand and the diversity or the offerings. It sounds like there's so many different kinds of music hosted by this site, much more than iTunes, that it rewards browsing, which can lead to lost hours on the internet. So it sounds like the digital music revolution has an upside (diversity and access) and a downside (time suck).