Nowadays, playing your favorite music is such a convenient thing to do. Thanks to portable music players, tablets and smartphones, listening to your much loved song is as easy as counting 1-2-3. The same thing goes when looking for a place where to purchase music, there are tons of online music download stores present, and choosing the right provider can quite be a daunting task.
Checking the Internet and trying to find the most efficient, affordable and feature-filled digital music provider is not a simple task to deal with. If you search “music download stores” in Google, thousands of links will show up. To cut your exploring time in half, listed below are some of the best music stores you should try. From small music stores to big-name digital music services, discover them all in the list.
Reviews for Best Online Music Stores
Amazon
First launched in 2007, Amazon is deemed to be one of the largest digital music service providers. This site has tons of songs to offer from hard-to-find classicals to newly released RnB’s. One amazing feature of Amazon MP3 is the Cloud Drive. This serves to be your personal music locker, any media content you purchase is automatically stored on this drive for safe keeping and backup purposes. Moreover, it has a Cloud Player where you can stream, play and upload different forms of multimedia content from various sources.
Amazon’s music download store is neatly organized, and if you’re familiar with its shopping site, you’ll find it easy to find contents. Alternatively, one major loophole of this store is the required software called Amazon MP3 downloader. This is a compulsory program needed to download multiple songs purchased from Amazon, though, many consumers sees it as an additional piece of crappy software.
iTunes
When it comes to huge collection of songs, sleek UI, reasonable pricing and literally millions of digital music contents, iTunes is the place to be. iTunes is the largest and by far the most competitive MP3 download store worldwide. What makes it different amongst other providers is that contents are not only limited to MP3s, it equally offers music videos, audio books, movies, podcasts, apps and many more. And just like most digital service providers, all contents purchased from the store are safely stored in iCloud.
With iTunes, you don’t need to have a Mac PC or iPhone before you can purchase songs from their collection. Whether you’re using Windows or Android, rest assured that you can buy its contents. However, do note that all songs available on iTunes comes in AAC format. Furthermore, this Apple music store doesn’t support playback of WMA files.
BeatPort
BeatPort might not offer a humungous selection of songs but it is the place to visit if you’re into electronic music and MP3 mixes. It is not new in the music market and has been providing digital music contents since 2004. What makes it unique though is that songs being offered on this site are more from remixers, DJs and independent musicians. In line with it, BeatPort is filled with exclusive album contents users won’t find elsewhere even on the largest online music store.
Far from its old lackluster interface, BeatPort recently got a new looked with its overhauled UI. However, even though searching and or purchasing songs from this website is deemed to be expedient, the limited number of available multimedia contents makes it more of a supplementary music store rather than a primary one.
Rhapsody
Containing over 16 million songs, Rhapsody has been one of the best online music stores present since 2001. It has been under different managements but as of time of writing, it is now an independent company. What makes it a great digital music store is that aside from offering tons of music selection, you can also use it to stream MP3s unlimitedly. Likewise, it launches an app compatible with most smartphones from iPhone to Android.
Rhapsody is a paid music subscription, but users can take advantage of their 14-day free trial to explore things out. Conversely, it is only available for Microsoft Windows, which means there is no way to download Rhapsody music on Linux and Mac. Nonetheless, the major downside of this service lies on the fact that it is only available in the US.
Google Play Music
If there is one neophyte provider on this list, it would be none other than Google Play Music. The said music streaming and downloading service of Google was only made public in May of 2011. Yet, having more than 22 million tracks fully available for purchase makes them one of the largest digital music service providers aside from Amazon and iTunes. With Google Play Music, users with standard accounts are allowed to upload and stream up to 20,000 songs totally free of charge but this doesn’t include premium MP3 downloads.
Purchasing songs on Google Play Music is very easy, contents are strategically organized and you only need few clicks to acquire your favorite tune. Although it features an enormous amount of songs, it is only available to 58 countries with majority of Asian countries not included on the list.
True that there are tons of online music download stores can be found in today’s competitive world, but the above mentioned digital media content providers are the cream of the crop. If you want a huge selection of music that can be stored automatically on the cloud, iTunes and Amazon is the way to go. But for Android users, using Google’s Play Music keep things neatly organized and well synchronized. On the other hand, those looking for unique contents, exclusive singles and diverse mixes, Rhapsody and BeatPort are the best stores to visit.
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