[squiguy7]

> When I buy music, I want it to be mine.

For me, Bandcamp has been the best site that holds true to this idea. My favorite band started releasing all of their music through Bandcamp because the pricing is fair for artists. And as a listener, I can download the music to my machine or stream it from the app after I have purchased it.

[WorldMaker]

Yeah, I try to search artists I find on Bandcamp first.

Also, CDBaby and Magnatune are still great sites for their respective niches.

(CDBaby started as a more traditional CD distributor and has moved increasingly into digital distribution, as opposed to Bandcamp starting with digital distribution and moving to physical distribution. Anyway, CDBaby has a larger back catalog of "older" stuff, and still some cases of for instance bands don't have digital distribution rights to their own stuff, but piles of old CDs to sell.)

(Magnatune is a "not evil" record label. So their content is limited to just stuff they've "signed", but it's a beautiful, eclectic mix of stuff. Much of which you'll see reused in small to medium projects such as the videogame Braid's soundtrack, because their licensing has a good spectrum from non-commercial Creative Commons usage to relatively affordable commercial usage.)

[jsgo]

One of my favorite musicians (Rhys Fulber, mostly due to Conjure One and Delerium for me) started releasing music on Bandcamp. Admittedly, the new cd really isn't my cup of tea, but I bought it from there anyway. Can't remember what the minimum price was, but I bumped it up to $20 US (think it was calculating in euros, iirc. I do remember having to use a currency converter on another site to pick the amount when buying it).

I really prefer that model, if we're being honest. I like bands, but not a huge fan of labels (and unfortunately, whereas they were helpful for discovery before, they really aren't anymore). Would rather my money go to them with a smaller cut to platforms hosting it.