It’s Baaack: Wal-Mart Re-launches Digital Music Store

Earlier this year Wal-Mart decided to get out of the digital music download rat-race. And who could blame them? iTunes was kicking digital download butt (and still is), Amazon MP3 had became cutting edge offering DRM-free music, and Limewire was stealing everything in between. Oh, and Yahoo! Music had recently given up too. Poor little Wal-Mart was living in the bogged down, Internet Explorer using, DRM loving, music world of yesteryear.

Yet, fear not bargain shoppers (and in this economy who isn't?), Wal-Mart has re-launched their music store and it's prettier, cheaper, and DRM-freer.



Following Amazon's, Napster's and Rhapsody's lead, every song and album sold in Wal-Mart's new digital download store, appropriately named Wal-Mart MP3 Music Downloads, is completely DRM-free. This means you can transfer your purchased music to any music portable music player as many times as you want.

Distinguishing them from the aforementioned companies, Wal-Mart is offering their songs at some of the cheapest prices on the 'Net, $0.74. Whoo! Well, some of the songs are less than six bits, the rest are $0.94, still cheaper than most of those other guys. Most albums are $9.22, and some are cheaper.

But don't get too excited. Wal-Mart still has an uphill battle. They offer less than 3 million songs; Amazon is pushing 6 million. They only offer edited versions of explicit albums and tracks; sorry rap fans. And they can't convert the old DRMed songs you previously purchased to an DRM-free MP3 track, iTunes at least gives you a discount.

Incidentally, we were a little surprised to find that Wal-Mart's service doesn't include AC/DC's new album "Black Ice." You know the one that is on sale exclusively at the store. As a matter of fact, they didn't have any AC/DC; nor do any of the DRM-free MP3 stores. You'd think the band would give Wal-Mart a break and give them exclusive access to the album physically and digitally.

You can see reviews of the best music and the best music download services here at TopTenREVIEWS. And we've got plenty of other blog posts that have been DRM-free since 1922:

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