printerati

This has been hot news on the eMusic message boards, but I haven't seen mention of it here.

The "eMusic Starter Subscription" packages sold at both Circuit City and Best Buy are now on clearance for $4.99 each. They look like this (and come in both black and white boxes):



These are effectively treated as "gift cards" by eMusic, which means that anyone (new or existing subscribers) can redeem as many as they want! At under 8 cents per song, it's a lot better than their current 40 cents per under their basic plan, and a hell of a lot better than iTunes' 99 cents per. I personally have already redeemed five of them, and I know of at least two area Circuit City stores that each have over 50 boxes remaining. I have heard that a number of stores have already pulled the boxes from the shelves, but that has not been the case around here.

However, there are a couple of catches...

First, you must use the downloads within 60 days of activating the code inside the box. Second, and most importantly, the Circuit City codes must be activated by 9/30/08! Best Buy codes must be activated by 11/10/08. You may notice that the boxes have an expiration date of 4/08, but an eMusic employee has verified the "actual" expiration dates listed above. As I said, I have redeemed five of them, one as recently as Friday, so I can verify that they still work.

I was going to swear them off again after the most recent (and rather covert) plan change (going from 40 songs@$9.99/month to 30 songs@$11.99/month), but this will keep me with them for the next few months. I hope there's no shortage of good new releases before the end of November.

chino77

i was a subscriber back when it was a 10 bucks a month free for all. its still a good deal but i cant bring myself to subscribe now days.

kenbuzz

I was a subscriber a couple of years ago, but found that I was listening to more podcasts than tunes, so I let it lapse. I recently got an email offering 75 free downloads if I renewed my subscription (yeah, it's $12/mo now for only 30 tracks), but I figure that even if I only hang for one month, 105 tracks (plus all the SXSW freebies you can eat) is worth twelve smackers (11.4 cents per track). More than enough to get the new Mellencamp and "new" Mitch Hedberg albums.

I may need to swing by my Best Buy to see if they have any of these cards left. Adding another 65 tracks for $4.99 (7.7 cents per track) is extremely cost-efficient. Thanks, OP.

PS - Anyone have any suggestions? I've got like 60-70 tracks left to download. I like Little Feat, ELO, and Brian Setzer, to name a few. Worst case, I'll just download comedy tracks, but those don't have as much replay value as music does.

Rocketdog2000

I tried two free trial offers of, I believe, 30 songs each - twice - and both times it was hard to find enough songs to to make me want to continue a subscription. I don't think I found even 20 songs the second time. I pretty much either already had everything they had to offer, or simply didn't find anything else that interested me.

printerati

What do you listen to?

Also, posts on the eMusic boards confirm that the Circuit City cards did indeed expire on 9/30. I haven't set foot in a Best Buy in months, but may need to now, as I burned through more CC cards than I care to admit and still want more.

macnorton

I dropped eMusic a little while back, but there is amazing music on there and for cheap! I have been meaning to sign back up again.

kenbuzz

I was steered toward Matthew Ebel's music a year or two ago by a podcast (Adam Curry's Daily Source Code) - specifically his song Drive Away. I ended up getting his whole album from eMusic, though I don't know if it's still available there or not. Probably should go see if he's got anything new out there.

Dr_Evil

Signed up a year or so ago through this offer
http://www.emusic.com/ge

Nice selection, but would've been nice to get in when it was all you could download model.

innocentfreak

Picked up some cards at Best Buy and I have already gone through three of them.

I did find a free album on there and I was curious if there was any way to see all the free stuff assuming there is more?