Two words: CHEAP MUSIC.

I need music, but we are pretty frugal around the Mayfield house. (We won’t to be free of all debt.) LegalSounds.com (LS) has been a great way for me to freely spend money on music. (I spend about $30/mo… $25 is my budget, but I’m bad!) It’s a fraction of the cost of iTunes, so I’m turning 30 songs into hundreds.

I thought it would communicate best if I gave a pros and cons list, and occasionally reference iTunes, sense we all use it!

The Pros.

It’s cheap. iTunes charges $.99 – $1.29 for songs. LS only charges $.09.

A lot of music is available. Most mainstream stuff is available… However, it’s still not quite as expansive as iTunes.

The Cons.

Lesser quality bitrate. iTunes offers songs at 256 kbps, most LS songs are much lower. (however, the soon coming Music Match service from iTunes might be a great fix for that.

It’s not as efficient. iTunes is in many respects the ends and the means. It’s all integrated… our shopping, storing and listening. LS requires you to buy songs THEN add them to your iTunes library… but you’re saving a lot of money.

It’s not as user-friendly. iTunes is extremely intuitive. LS requires some getting used to, but it’s not terrible.

I would highly recommend you to give LegalSounds.com a try. It’s worth the extra time to be able to buy albums for the price of songs.