Well call me a monkey’s uncle, it looks like we now have the ability to listen to real, mainstream, non-”I’ve never heard of them” music in MP3 format, regardless of which OS you happen to run. Heck yes! It’s funny because even though Amazon is offering download software for Windows and OS X, it is not mandatory and you can in fact, listen to your MP3s in Linux immediately after purchasing them. DRM freedom never felt so good.

This is great timing as my wife, who has always been a happy Mac user (new one come soon as her other one died), needs to find a way to get some new tunes within the constraints of Linux Mint on her notebook, and would rather not find out that it is forcing her to use some lame software - Amazon nails it for her. Nearly everything she is listening to is listed, nearly. There is still some room for growth, but it is a great place to start for sure.

Not to be outdone, Apple is also releasing DRM free music - at a lesser sound quality. Bundle that with software we are not interested in using and you have two people who will not be buying anything from iTunes again. That and .89 cents a song is hard to pass up.

[tags]music, amazon, albums[/tags]