Music Download Sites Reviews and Ratings

We want to help you find the right music download service so to get started, think about your downloading habits and ask yourself a few questions:

- How much music do I download a month.
- What format do I need music to be in (for iPods, MP3 format or iTunes is needed).
- How important is music selection and am I looking to download music from top 40 artists.

We put together this chart and following is some helpful information that will assist you in deciding on the right music download site for you.

#	Sites	Ratings	Songs	Top 40	MP3	WMA	Free Trial	Reviews
1.		9.4 / 10	+6,000,000				14 Day Free Trial	Review
2.		8.6 / 10	+4,500,000				25 free MP3's	Review
3.		8.4 / 10	+8,000,000					Review
4.		7.2 / 10	+6,000,000					Review
5.		6.6 / 10	+10,000,000					Review

Average Music Downloads a Month of +50 Songs

If you plan on downloading lots of music regularly, what you're looking for is a subscription based service. Our top suggestion would be Napster.

For $5 a month, you get access to their full library of music which currently holds over 8 million songs including the latest hits, some exclusive tracks, popular oldies, loads of indie music, and pretty much anything else you can think of. In addition to unlimited access to their library of music, you also get 5 monthly MP3 downloads which are yours to keep even if you choose to cancel or terminate your subscription. That alone is worth the $5 / month since at iTunes, for 5 downloads, you're already looking at spending a little more than that ever since their pricing scale has popular songs at $1.29 each.

Music lovers, if you know you need a lot of new and fresh music regularly, don't bother on a pay-per-song site. Napster is a much more economical choice and you will be amazed at how much music you have right at your fingertips.

Average Music Downloads a Month Between 10 - 50 songs

Under 50 songs a month, Napster is still a great fit for the sheer value of their low cost monthly subscription service, but now eMusic becomes a solid contender for the cost as well. Their service is based on a monthly subscription which lets you download 30, 50, or up to 75 songs a month depending on your plan. The amount of downloads is reset at the beginning of each month.

At the moment, they do not offer most of the top 40 mainstream artists as they do not have distribution deals with the major labels so if you're looking for the Britney Spears, Madonna, Rihanna type of artists, this may not be the music download site for you. They do however have millions of songs from most of the indie labels and indie acts around which covers a large spectrum and gives you an idea of how many big name indie artists are actually out there.

On a positive note, they are confident enough with their service that they are offering 25 free MP3 downloads, no strings attached, just for trying them out.

Average Music Downloads a Month -10 songs

At under 10 songs or an album a month on average, our top suggestion is SuperPass which on top of getting 10 free music downloads a month, you also have access to online television shows from the Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Plant and many more, you can download full length classic and current movies, get thousands of radio stations, and a free game a month. They currently offer a free 14 day trial to give you a chance to get a taste of everything this complete entertainment service offers. With the trial, you also get to download 10 free music downloads of your choice from their catalogue of over 6 million songs.

If you don't feel SuperPass is right for you, what you need is a solid pay-per-song site as opposed to a subscription based service. These sites set prices on a per song download basis so no monthly fees. Individual songs are roughly $1 on average with albums around $10. With a huge library of over 6 million songs and great prices, we recommend Amazon as a first option followed by the iTunes site which is a bit pricier and has more complex software in our opinion.

What Makes These Music Sites Legal

What makes the services we have on our site legal is that in the end, the artist is payed for their work. All download sites on this page in one form or another have deals in place with the bands and artists' labels or representatives which gives them permission to distribute the songs online. When someone subscribes to one of the sites above, or buys an individual track or album, the services above pay the labels and representatives, who then pay out a portion (depending on their arrangements) to the artists which makes the system completely legal as oppossed to file sharing programs where artists are not payed.

If you have specific questions or needs that were not addressed in the material provided through our site. please don't hesitate to contact us and we will be glad to help..