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Pay Play Review
- PayPlay.FM is a pay as you download service, but you must top up your account before purchasing music.
- Music can be downloaded at the following prices
-
WMA
- individual song - $0.77
- WMA - full album - $7.77
-
MP3
- individual song - $0.88
- MP3 - full album - $8.88
- No limit to the number of times you can download a track you have paid for
- Get karma points entitling you to free tracks
- Build up karma points just by visiting the site
- Works on Windows, Mac or Linux
- Download tracks in MP3 or WMA format
- MP3 downloads can be copied to an unlimited number of portable devices or burned to an unlimited number of CDs
- Download album artwork with the songs you download
- MP3 songs encoded at 192 kbps
- Pay via Paypal
- Over 2 million tracks in the music library
- Discover new, independent artists
- Listen to free samples of every tracks
- Search music by the mood you are in
- Discover new music by uploading an iTunes or Winamp playlist or linking to your LastFM profile
- Download songs for as little as $0.77
- Linked into the StumbleAudio website to 'stumble' upon great new music
PayPlay.FM is a music download service for lovers of indie music. It doesn't carry the latest releases from major labels, but offers a huge selection of independent artists. Its novel music discovery features make it stand out from some of the other indie music download services we have seen, so let us tell you the highs and lows of PayPlay.FM.
Let's first mention the PayPlay.FM web site, since this is where you will be doing all of your downloading from. They don't provide any software to help with this, but the process is pretty simple and shouldn't cause many problems for most people. The first thing we noticed is that there is something calming about the website design. Like many of the indie music services, PayPlay.FM seems to rely on advertising to generate some of its revenue. Unlike some however, the advertising is subtly entwined in the design and not right in your face, so we could put up with it. The rest of the site is also easy to use and nicely laid out. Artist information is provided for most, if not all, of the artists on the web site so you can find out a bit about artists you haven't heard of.
The best feature of PayPlay.FM is the 'match' feature it provides. This is aimed at helping you find new music from independent artists based on artists you already know you like. Three different options are provided to match you with new artists. Firstly, like most sites, you can search for your favourite artist and be given recommendations. Secondly, you can upload a playlist in various different formats and be given recommendations based on a wider selection of your music. Finally you can give the site your LastFM nickname to be given recommendations based on your LastFM profile. These are great features for discovering new music, and some that we haven't seen on many other sites.
Another great feature if you aren't quite sure what you want is to search the 2 million plus track music library. Not only does the site provide all the usual search options you would expect, you can also search based on the mood you are in - there's even a 'sex music' mood category to browse through! We particularly like the cute cartoons used to represent each mood.
The final feature worth mentioning is that you can build up Karma points on your account which can be used to download tracks for free. Artists can designate which tracks on an album can be downloaded for Karma points and it seems that there are quite a lot with free tracks available. You get 25 Karma points just for registering then build up more simply by buying songs and albums, reviewing music and even simply just visiting the site.
Regarding Digital Rights Management (DRM):
PayPlay.FM offers tracks in WMA or MP3 format. Both are encoded at 192kbps which is good quality, but not quite as good as some of the major sites are now beginning to offer. MP3 downloads are DRM free and can be copied to any number of portable devices and burned to any number of CDs. WMA downloads are protected using DRM techniques and can be burned to CDs, but will only work on portable players which support PlaysForSure technology. In other words not the iPod.
So what about value for money? The prices of individual tracks from PayPlay.FM are fixed at $0.77 for WMA format downloads and $0.88 for MP3 downloads. Albums can vary depending on how many tracks are on the album, but in general come in at $7.77 for a WMA encoded album and $8.88 for an MP3 album. These are pretty good prices for this kind of service. It might be possible to get the same tracks cheaper elsewhere, but usually only as part of a subscription deal.
PayPlay.FM is an excellent service for indie music lovers, but those looking for top 40 tracks should head elsewhere. However, if you are ready to give indie music a try PayPlay.FM provides some brilliant, novel features for discovering new music. The only reason it comes lower down in our top ten is because it doesn't yet offer a subscription payment option to provide tracks at cheaper prices. This is definitely a service to watch and may well be making its way up our rankings very soon.
Click the button below to check out Pay Play for yourself...
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>> Go to PayPlay.fm
or
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