Amazon MP3 Downloads Finally Get Songs

My dream has been realized. A few short months after the release of Amazon's foray into the music market, they have inked deals with Warner, EMI, Universal, and now Sony-BMG. Now they have a virtual corn-u-copia of DRM-free music for your perusal. What's the catch, you ask? Well, it seems that Amazon has also made a deal with physical stores to offer pre-paid cards to download certain items available from Amazon. No word if they'll restrict specific albums or songs for sale only in retail stores, but it will probably happen, if I know my greedy brick-and-mortar retailers correctly.

Amazon MP3 Downloads: THE Music Store For Linux

I just now delved deeper into Amazon's new music store, which I mentioned a few days ago, and I was quite impressed with my experience.

I made my first purchase One Night in Bangkok by Murray Head. Yes, I'm an 80's kind of guy. I'm probably the only man under the age of 18 in Cooke County, Texas who has Fleetwood Mac, The Pretenders, AND Haddaway on my iPod. C'mon, I challenge you.

Anyway, buying was simple and quick. I just clicked on the buy button, passed up the MP3 downloader software offer, and then was taken to a screen where I could download my song. Once I downloaded it, I loaded it to my iPod and listened to it in all of it's high-bitrate, non-DRM, sickeningly-over-the-top synthesizer goodness.

Oh, and did I mention that I did all of this in Linux?

Uh-huh. Because of the lack of DRM, and the help of some special applications, I was able to take the downlaoded song and sync it to my iPod with no fuss.

What do you think I paid for this little gem of a song? $1.99? Nope. Unlike iTunes Plus, this song only cost me 89 cents. Pretty sweet, huh?

The only downside to using Amazon MP3 with Linux is that if you want to buy a whole album, you're out of luck, as you'll have to download the Windows/Mac OS X compatible downloader client. I'm sure you could get it running in Wine, but I haven't had the chance to try. For now, I'll just have to download my music singularly.

So for anyone looking for a new music store, especially the Linux crowd, you need to take a look at this place. iTunes might want to keep an eye out for these guys.

Amazon MP3 Will Be A Winner...If It Has Songs

I haven't had the chance to actually download a song from them yet, but the Amazon MP3 store looks pretty promising.

Released to the public just a few days ago, Amazon has made quite a contender for the iTunes Store.

The number one selling point with Amazon is its DRM-free music. That's right. When you download it, it's yours. No strings attached. Sure, Apple has DRM-free songs with EMI, but that's the problem. It's from EMI.

The interface looks pretty good. It's pretty much typical Amazon fashion, and I've heard both good and bad reviews of their Music Downloader software that's required to download from the service. I'll try it out and give my two cents on it soon.

Amazon's done a great job so far, but the big thing that needs to be done is what will make or break the service. Selection. There isn't much of it now, but soon they should grab the attention of the big labels.

Digital Care Package Sent To Troops

Not as good as new Humvee armor or R&R, but it'll do. A guy going by the name "Deviant Ollam" has sent loads of hard drives in a hard, green case filled with movies, music and more to the troops in Tajikstan. It includes everything. The cables, the adapters, everything. And the troops are encouraged to add some of their files, and then send it to someone else.

An excellent idea for some excellent people.

[Hacker's project sends media-filled hard drives to troops] Engadget
[Traveling Terabyte - The ultimate digital care package for overseas Marines] TG Daily

The Weekender: Don Johnson Sings!

Hey, remember Miami Vice? Of course you do. Don Johnson? Hell, yes! He was friggin' Sonny Crockett for God's sake! Did you know he could sing? Ummmmmm...

Don Johnson's runaway hit single is served piping hot just for you on this week's weekender.



Circa 1986, this cheesy gem of a video is just one of Johnson's smash hits on his debut album, Heartbeat. It sold like hotcakes, and it seemed that Sonny was headed to quite a career in music...until his second album. What's he up to now? Commentating last year's Super Bowl and raking in royalties from Nash Bridges!

SATURDAY CHALLENGE: Can you spot Paul Shaffer from David Letterman fame in this video?