Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Quick Plug for the Pure

Dudes, I just found a sweet company serving up DRM-free mp3: Puretracks. Now, I know that there are other DRM-free sites out there (including Amazon), but allow me to make a case for the Pure and suggest that you look 'em up.

Here's why I like Puretracks:

1. They encode EVERYTHING at 192kbps. 192's the place where storage economy and sound quality meet and play nice. It's what I use for ripping CDs.

2. DRM-free means I can put their mp3s on my iPod with ease. No compatibility issues; no problems at all. Also: unlimited burning.

3. The songs download lighting-fast. I pulled down Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" (a 5.3MB file) in one second. One Friggin' Second, ya'll. No exaggeration.

4. Puretracks is Canadian. That means
(a) now that the USD is back on top of the Canadian dollar, a 99-cent song only costs 97 cents. And it can only get better right?
(b) The licenses are legit. This ain't grey-market, quasi-legal Russian stuff; it's easy on the conscience.
(c) And this is the kicker: Awesome customer service. They respond quickly (sometimes within 10 minutes). They're super friendly. I screwed up my order twice, and they fixed it for me both times. The first time, they emailed the song I needed directly to me as an attachment. The second time, they gave me a PIN number for a free download. Excellent.

UPDATE: Now for the bad news--it's hard to tell whether you're getting the clean version or the original. I ended up with the sanitized version of Winehouse's "Back to Black." Now I gotta buy it AGAIN.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

i ended up with a 'clean' version instead of the regular version of a track as well. I contacted customer service and they quickly exchanged it for me. So you probably don't have to buy it again.

Anonymous said...

Actually I believe your real problem is buying Amy Winehouse songs. Customer service can't fix that.

Spoon said...

Wow. Have you actually listened to an Amy Winehouse song? Or are you just judging her music by her face? Because if it's the latter, your comment might be excusable. But if it's the former, dude, what the heck? The hag's got a voice! And the Dap Kings are pure pleasure on that record!

Anonymous said...

I have. She has a decent voice, but I enjoy the Dap Kings with Sharon Jones much better. My problem is I have a hard time listening to music of people that I know are jackasses in real life (Michael Jackson excluded).