Seven cheap alternatives to iTunes

Don't do all of your music shopping on iTunes - there are plenty of alternatives which will save you money!

Obviously, I have never downloaded music illegally. No sir, not me. Peer-to-peer programs like Napster and Kazaa never appeared on my computer.

Not guilty, your honour, honestly.

But I do own an MP3 player, and I do want to fill it to the brim with my favourite music, so what's the cheapest way to do it?

The iTunes conundrum

I only got my first iPod just over a year ago. Until then I had resisted, determined to rebel against the mainstream with a Creative Zen MP3 player, which in all honesty looked like one of those massive mobile phones from the 1980s.

There was never any chance of losing it, but equally, it wasn't the sort of sexy little gadget that you can secrete about your person subtly and it had a fair few flaws.

So I swallowed my pride and conformed by buying a nice little iPod Touch. And it's brilliant, absolutely no complaints.

Well, except one. iTunes is a bit of a rip-off, isn't it?

I knew there were cheaper outfits when I signed up, having previously bought plenty of music for my MP3 player from Woolworths online. While iTunes would charge 79p for a track, most of the stuff from Woolworths was half that price, at 39p, which is a decent saving.

Sadly Woolies has now bitten the dust, but there are loads of other places you can get music cheaper than iTunes!

Sailing over to Amazon

My personal favourite is Amazon.

The vast bulk of their music is MUCH cheaper than iTunes, with some tracks as little as 29p. And not just any old rubbish either - three of last week's top five in the singles chart are available at that price. Bargain!

And fear not if you are the sort of person that ranks Radio 1 as a member of the Axis of Evil - there is a huge classical collection on Amazon at that price, as well as classics by Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones.

Of course, the one thing to note with Amazon is that there is a range of different prices when downloading from the site - while there is a whole heap of music available much cheaper than iTunes, there are also songs that cost a fair whack more.

For example, if you fancy I'd Do Anything For Love by Meat Loaf, or Go West by the Pet Shop Boys (and who wouldn't?) then you will have to pay £1.89 each, which is pretty steep.

Play it again Sam

Next on the list is Play.com - it doesn't just offer great DVD deals, but good MP3 ones too! The site has a nice range of both current hits and some older stuff as well, and tracks are generally priced around 65p-70p.

Not massively cheaper than iTunes, but if you're likely to buy a stackload of songs, that saving soon adds up.

Two more to have a look at are the Tesco Digital site and HMV, both of which offer a range of contemporary music.

Tesco offers a track of the week at 57p, with most other tracks costing 77p, while HMV has a stack of tunes on offer at 69p, though the odd track will cost 79p - the same as iTunes.

Subscription

If you don't want to pay by the track, then an alternative is to sign up for a subscription service. Virgin Media and Universal last week announced plans to launch just such a service, but there are plenty already in service.

Probably the most famous is the aforementioned Napster, which has cleaned up its act. The site offers eight million tracks to subscribers, who can choose from three membership options.

However, unless you sign up to Napster to Go (which costs £14.95 a month) then you are unable to transfer your downloads to an MP3 player.

If all of this music seems a bit too mainstream, then one site previously recommended by the lovemoney.com community is eMusic.com.

This is not the place to go if you are after the latest Britney single - eMusic.com offers a wide range of independent label music and some of the best tunes that fall under the radar of the music charts, with artists including Jarvis Cocker and Sebastien Tellier.

There are a range of subscription plans available: the eMusic basic, at £9.99 a month, which covers 24 downloads, the eMusic plus at £13.99 per month, which covers 35 downloads, the eMusic premium, which allows you to make 50 downloads each month, for a regular payment of £17.99, and the eMusic connoisseur which covers 75 downloads for £24.99 per month.

Spotify the difference

However, if you tend to do your music listening in the office, there is a brilliant free alternative - Spotify.

This nifty bit of software lets you put together your own playlists from a massive selection of songs, absolutely free, which you can listen to at your desk at any time. The only catch is the occasional advert from sponsors, but these are pretty infrequent in truth.

If the ads do get on your nerves, you can pay to get rid of them - 99p for a day pass, or £9.99 per month.

Obviously this is not much use for those that want their music on the go, although Spotify is apparently in talks with Apple about a Spotify application for the iPhone, which could change everything.

My advice is to always shop around for your music, and don't rely on iTunes to always offer the best deal. It may be the easiest option, but it is rarely the cheapest.

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