Amazing! A record company finally gets it …. Sort of.

Universal Music’s “emusic”, one of the pay to download services, is finally starting to see the light. With high record prices and limited radio playlists keeping most folks from discovering new music Universal music may finally be opening the door to an obvious choice.

From an article in the SF Gage:

In a limited test, Universal Music, the largest of the world’s big five record labels, will release about 1,000 of its hard-to-find back catalog albums through its online music subscription subsidiary, EMusic.com. In another groundbreaking step, Universal will allow the downloaded tracks to be burned onto recordable CDs or transferred to a portable digital audio player, actions the record industry has been reluctant to allow for fear of cannibalizing already falling CD sales revenue.

I for one am supporting this move. I ran over and singed up immediately. I went for the 14.99 for three months plan. The first thing I did was download the Charlie Parker catalogue. Tons of great jazz, some interesting country (including the Louisiana Hayride) and some cool Blues (including tons of Lightning Hopkins). And all legal to burn of transfer. Bravo! At least it’s a a step in the right direction.

The emusic collection is especially heavy on classic jazz records. For 10 bucks a month, you could build quite a jazz collection. My only bitch at this time is the lack of decent id3 tags and low (128k) bitrates. But I’m biting.

http://emusic.com

As an example, here’s the Coltraine catalouge available online at emusic. These are full albums:

Coltrane, John

My Favorite Things

Soultrane

Live Trane: The European Tours (Disc 3) This release is an Editor’s Pick. Live Trane: The European Tours (Disc 1) This release is an Editor’s Pick. Live Trane: The European Tours (Disc 2) This release is an Editor’s Pick. Live Trane: The European Tours (Disc 7) This release is an Editor’s Pick. Live Trane: The European Tours (Disc 6) This release is an Editor’s Pick. The Stardust Session

The European Tour

Black Pearls

The Last Trane

Wheelin’ & Dealin’

Coltrane / Prestige 7105

John Coltrane And The Jazz Giants

Believer

The Best Of John Coltrane

Bye Bye Blackbird

Dakar

Stardust

Bahia