Can you just buy MP3s these days?

Music
21

I’m finding that the ones that aren’t on Spotify are also impossible to just buy a download for a lot of the time as well. What a daft world.

22

Quboz is pretty good. Used it a few times last year.

23

Apparently they often don’t bother these days as they get very little take up of the download, the majority of buyers stream if they don’t want to listen to the physical copy. I got the Spielbergs album the other year and that didn’t have one and mentioned it on Instagram and they replied saying they didn’t think anyone cared about them anymore.

24

Is the download to buy on quboz as extensive as the streaming catalogue?

25

Aye. Pretty much identical.

2 Likes
26

Any shops other than boomkat automatically give you the download as well when you buy the record? I do really appreciate that but they must pay something for it

1 Like
27

Probably a really good option for @anon5266188 then.

Need to take a look again at Quobus, haven’t for a while.

28

Both albums that prompted me to start this thread aren’t on there unfortunately

29

used them a bit when someone (you maybe?) posted their jazz freebies in the music bargains thread, i found a few other bargains in the sale they had at the time but haven’t checked them out since

30

Most of these blogs are a sorry sea of dead links these days. Fair enough for the ones that were just sharing big new albums, but I miss the ones that were full of weird obscure noise tapes and such, stuff you couldn’t buy for money if you tried. RIP in peace

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31

Have had mixed experiences with Quboz. Sometimes they’ve been reasonable prices, but occasionally some albums are utterly bizarre expensive prices. But nice to have something to fall back on that isn’t Amazon for the non-bandcamp releases.

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32

Not on bandcamp either?

33

weirdly i’m certain Rough Trade releases normally come with download codes but i bought two last week that didn’t. maybe because one was an RSD release (which i already bought a cheap download of from Juno months ago so it’s fine) and the other was a Love Record Stores release, still strange though

34

Nope. Feel like it’s very specifically a couple of “label dispute” records I’m struggling with or something

35

Yeah that makes sense. Really annoying when randomly some albums by artist aren’t available when the rest are.

36

Aye, 21st century problems innit

37

Does end up forcing people to illegally download doesn’t it

38

Aye, there is not much I find more infuriating than being willing to pay for and obtain music/TV/films legally and being unable to do so. Absurd

3 Likes
39

I’ve switched to Bandcamp a fair amount over the past year, but I do still buy stuff from iTunes, and they’re not tied to a specific platform anymore (no DRM) but are still AAC rather than MP3.

40

99% of my digital music purchases are from Bandcamp these days I reckon, other than downloads that came with vinyl or the (rare these days) ripped CD, I can’t remember the last time I got mp3s from anywhere else. It was probably just before I quit eMusic.

1 Like