NextFavorite.com's Best Music Download Sites

July 2007

You kids don’t know how easy you have it nowadays. I remember a time in the last millennium when I spent a whole Saturday scouring the bargain bins of record stores throughout lower Manhattan in order to create a mix tape for an Old School Rap party (now that’s another story altogether.) And I was so excited to find a cassette single of “Jump” by Kris Kross. Now it takes all of 2 minutes to find it online and burn it to a CD.

Not that I’m bitter or anything.

Actually, I’m here to help. That is, to help you find the best music download service out of a confusing array of choices. Picking the wrong download service can be costly, both in terms of time and money. And judging based on many of the consumer reviews we’ve read, it can raise your blood pressure to dangerously high levels.

That's why we created our music download site buying guide. We reviewed the reviewers, and tested the sites ourselves to find the ones that are just right for you.

The first piece of advice is this: you don't need to own Apple's iPod. There, I said it. Sure it's cool, it's iconic, it's built into the iPhone. But it limits your choices in music formats to Apple's proprietary AAC files and it limits your choice in shopping to just the pay-per-download iTunes service. If you're an avid music fan, you can end up paying hundreds more per year for your music than if you have a Windows compatible (WMA) portable music device. This opens up your selection in music download sites to all-you-can eat subscription services which are great for discovering new music and trying before you buy.

But the best advice we could give you is to try them out for yourselves. Fortunately, there's so much competition between music download sites that most will give away freebies. Click Here for a list of free trials.