Passionato Music Store
A new classical music store has just opened selling classical music in MP3 format called Passionato. Emusic already does classical music, but is quite limited as it only carries independent labels like Naxos. So, if you’re quite picky about recordings (Naxos recordings are good, but not generally the most critically acclaimed), emusic isn’t for you.
The problem with Passionato is the price. I looked the Solti recording of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, and for the same price as the MP3 download, I could buy the box set from play.com. In the case of full opera sets, the loss is even greater than with rock CDs. You don’t just lose the media, case and cover art, but the libretto (the text of the opera) including translations, so that if you want to follow what’s being sung, you can’t. If I’m not going to get the book, it should be quite a lot cheaper.
I find music stores frustrating. There are 3 things I’d like them to supply:-
- Music in a portable format.
- A means to download the music that doesn’t require any software.
- Pricing that reflects that downloads are an inferior product to a CD.
Emusic is about the closest to that. It has a “download manager” but it’s not too wretched. It doesn’t bother me with questions about scanning my library, or install other crap or try to become my default player. The music is cheap (30p/track) and it’s all in MP3.
One downside with emusic is the choice. There’s some decent music on there, but a lot of mainstream stuff isn’t.
Hopefully, the arrival of Amazon will bring some improvements.
RSS
Yes, but you don’t have to sign up to any monthly scheme, as you do with eMusic. You buy the music and download it. I have tried it; it is slow at the moment; I assume it will get faster. The selection is pretty good and prices are not all as high as you indicate; I got a Strauss CD (Richard) for £4.
Hi Paul,
Fair comment. I only checked out a couple of operas (which is mostly what I listen to).
With emusic, I’m a sporadic member, as there is rarely enough music that I want.
Music downloads today, and books tomorrow, that seems to be the way we are proceding.