MSN Music

Editor's note: On November 16, 2004, MSN Music teamed up with GarageBand.com in order to increase the exposure of independent and up-and-coming artists. We think this is swell.

The online music cosmos just got bigger today with the official release of Microsoft's MSN Music, a behemoth of a virtual music store, where users will soon be able to browse a library of more than 1 million tracks and purchase them in an à la carte fashion. According to a Microsoft spokeperson, the store will launch with 620,000 tracks, but this number will increase daily; users probably won't see 1 million tracks for several weeks. Following in the footsteps of established stores and services such as Apple iTunes Music Store and Napster, the unfashionably late MSN Music has a number of features going for it. First, it will soon boast a catalog that's significantly larger than Napster and Musicmatch's, comprising the biggest source for legal WMA downloads. In comparison, Apple's iTunes Music Store currently has more than 1 million tracks available in AAC. Second, most tracks are encoded at the higher-than-average 160Kbps, and selected tracks have bit rates of 256Kbps. Last but not least, MSN Music is both browser-based and accessible within Microsoft's own Windows Media Player 10.0, so it has a distinct advantage on both the operating system and brand-recognition levels. In preview mode since September 1, MSN Music is now available in 17 countries, making it "the world's largest network of legal online music services." The store is also integrated with the new Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and includes several features not available in the preview.Outside of updating to Windows Media Player 10.0, installation is a nonissue. MSN Music can be conveniently accessed within Windows Media Player 10.0 (Windows XP users only) by clicking the Online Stores area or by entering music.msn.com in Internet Explorer; other browsers such as Firefox are not supported. Both interfaces are virtually the same, but the use of WMP 10.0 lends the experience a more integrated feel, as with Apple's iTunes. One of MSN Music's distinct advantages is the fact that you don't need to download and install a plug-in in order to browse for music as you would for Napster, Musicmatch, and the other music stores available within WMP 10.0.