Lala
Lala is proof that occasionally and very rarely, the music industry can pull its head out of its ass long enough to allow someone to try an idea that makes sense.
I don't know how many virgin sacrifices the Lala people had to offer for their plan to be approved by the labels, but it's awesome: You can listen to every single song in the catalog, in its entirety, once for free.
If you want to continue to listen to a song, you pay $0.10 and can stream it until the end of time.
If you really really like it, you can buy an unencumbered MP3 for $0.89, and your $0.10 is applied as a discount.
Oh, and every song you own today? You can unlock those for free in your Lala library so you can stream them from any computer with web access.
The worst part of the process is that Lala Music Mover (which syncs up what you own with Lala's catalog) is incredibly slow. But even that can be worked around; start the mover, go to bed, and all your music's available on Lala in the morning.
I don't know how many virgin sacrifices the Lala people had to offer for their plan to be approved by the labels, but it's awesome: You can listen to every single song in the catalog, in its entirety, once for free.
If you want to continue to listen to a song, you pay $0.10 and can stream it until the end of time.
If you really really like it, you can buy an unencumbered MP3 for $0.89, and your $0.10 is applied as a discount.
Oh, and every song you own today? You can unlock those for free in your Lala library so you can stream them from any computer with web access.
The worst part of the process is that Lala Music Mover (which syncs up what you own with Lala's catalog) is incredibly slow. But even that can be worked around; start the mover, go to bed, and all your music's available on Lala in the morning.