.:DataWhat?:.

Believe it or not, I made my first online digital music purchase ever today.

I bought Jason Isbell's "Sirens of the Ditch" from the new Amazon MP3 store.



The store offers non DRM'd (non-protected) MP3s at 256 kbps (decent sound quality) at a really decent cost ($8.99 for 11 songs).

The non-DRM part means that I am not locked into one format or one MP3 player, and I can move these songs to my phone, my other PC at home or my new laptop when I get one. This was the main reason I never bought anything from the iTunes Music Store.

Although my first two searches (the new Eisley record and the spectacular new Iron & Wine (available streaming at MySpace here) were not available at the Amazon store, I did find a record I was interested in. There is a button to preview sound samples of all of the songs which worked like a charm, and a single button to download the album.

Most songs cost 89 or 99 cents, with all of the top 100 downloaded songs available at 89 cents. Most full albums I browsed were $8.99 or less.

The only complaints that I have are:

The store doesn't offer every recording ever made (hopefully Sony/BMG, Warner and the rest of Universal will join up soon)

The browsing seems a little clunky

And there are no album reviews (but they are showing a smattering of AMG artist Bios as evidenced Here written by yours truly).

Overall, I'd be willing to bet that this single move will change the music industry almost as much as the iPod/iTunes model did. A distribution model that makes sense, makes users more willing to purchase, takes manufacturing and shipping comepletely out of the equation, and allows all of us non-criminals to use our music on the devices we've purchased.

I encourage everyone to spend the 9 bucks, buy an album they've been thinking about, and support this model.

AMG Review of the Jason Isbell Record Here:

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Thanks Jeff Bezos

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