Sometimes it feels like I’m the only person on the planet who has heard of eMusic. I’ve been a fan of eMusic since I first heard about it, and have been a paying member since July 2002. (Which means that eMusic’s various owners have made a total of something like $1000 off of me.) I try and tell everyone I know about eMusic, but sometimes it takes more than word-of-mouth to convince people to lay down $10-$20 a month. So maybe ArsTechnica’s review of eMusic will get more people excited about it:
They’re doing a lot of things right. The site works well, downloads are quick, and it has plenty of tools with which to discover new music. The music itself is high bit rate VBR MP3 files, and it sounds terrific. Still, you’ll need to have a musical taste at least slightly outside the mainstream for the site to interest you in the long term.
It’s kinda funny; Ars considers eMusic’s focus on indie music to be a con, but I see it as one of eMusic’s biggest pros. Indie music is exactly what I was looking for back in 2002, when I decided to boycott the RIAA for their destruction of the old AudioGalaxy P2P service. But I stayed because of the quality of music on eMusic. Without eMusic, I would’ve never heard The New Pornographers, Neko Case, Christopher Jak, nor the Drive-By Truckers.
Oh, and since eMusic offers standard, VBR MP3s, it works flawlessly with Linux! Download and listen, it’s that easy. 
