As CD sales continue to plunge, it’s nice to hear more good news about digital music stores. Congrats to eMusic for reaching 300,000 subscribers, which they announced earlier this week.
I really like my eMusic subscription. it provides me with a nice, reasonably-priced way to check out new music and independent bands. I offered a similar post to congratulate eMusic’s 100 millionth download (back in December when I was still running LMM). I like the eMusic model and have already downloaded a ton of tracks that I might not have discovered on my own.
But after being an eMusic subscriber for some time — and a live music fanatic for even longer — I have an eMusic gripe:
What’s with the weak catalog for eMusic live?
Read more after the jump…
What’s going on here? I haven’t seen anything new added to eMusic Live for months. Why has eMusic Live gotten so over-looked in comparison to other areas of their catalog? Do they think their subscribers don’t like live music? Are they too set on album-centric Indie Rock?
eMusic, I still love ya. But as a loyal subscriber, I’d like to see you expand your live offerings. So, here’s my crazy suggestion: try partnering with Nugs.net and its LiveDownloads.com sites.
Now I realize that Brad Serling’s little jamband soundboard empire might not really need eMusic. But I think a partnership could bring some solid benefits to both eMusic and Nugs.net. eMusic could quickly gain a core group of new subscribers by listing some key bands from the LiveDownloads catalog. Most of the fans of these bands are not only live music fans, but are generally prodigious music fans in general. Also, I think these fans would really embrace the idea of having a subscription model for their favorite bands’ concert recordings.
LiveDownloads.com might not have quite as much to gain in this partnership, but I think they could certainly make some gains by selling in bulk and gaining a lot more attention. One of my issues with the LiveDownloads model is that I just don’t always want to spend a full $10 on a show. With a subscription model, I know I’d be much more likely to grab a random concert recording of a band I’ve never heard before or download multiple shows from some of my favorites live acts. Who knows, Nugs.net might even attract some different types of bands into the livedownloads.com network?
Any other eMusic subscribers out there feel the same way?
