Find That Rare CD
. . . A review of **** musicimports.com, **** wpmusic.com, and **** atwmusic.com.
Scale: **** Bookmark this site now1x *** Worth a click ** Barely surfable * Web site equivalent of junk e-mail
If you've ever scoured your local record store in search of rare or import CD's, you know how difficult, and how frustrating, it can be to find what you're looking for. Conducting a similar search on the Web is no less frustrating, unless you know exactly where to look.
In search of that rare copy of U2's "The Sweetest Thing" single, the one that was only released in Australia? Look no further than Music Imports, which boasts that it is "the world's largest import music store." It lives up to its claim. By allowing you to search by artist or song title, Music Imports lets you browse through its 270,000-plus selections and choose among them. Once it's through searching, the site displays your requests by title and artist -- including in its display the country of origin and the number of available copies. And in the rare event that your search was futile, you can e-mail the Music Imports gurus and specially request your desired selection. In between searches, be sure to check out the music news that greets you when you arrive at the site.
The World Party Music site is just that -- a party. It deals in a whole lot more than just import CD's. With listening lounges and a place where aspiring musicians can hock their own wares, World Party Music is as user-friendly as it gets. And aspiring musicians aren't the only ones who can sell CD's -- just in case you get sick of that U2 single you picked up a few weeks ago. In fact, many of the used selections are among the most recent releases, and the prices are super-low, around eight bucks per CD. World Party Music has an extensive import collection and competitive prices (some are lower than similar selections at Music Imports). The site does not limit itself to just imports and used CD's, featuring a good selection of new CD's as well.
Despite its sparse graphics Around the World Music is another great site. Its specialty is the rarest of the rare. The site features such hard-to-find goodies as a live appearance by the Beastie Boys on the Chris Rock Show (the video sells for $15) and promo releases by everyone from Alice in Chains to Dwight Yoakam. The site offers a variety of payment and shipping methods, and is big on customer service -- so much so that one of its links even takes you straight to CDNow to look at what upcoming releases you'd like to see at Around the World Music.
These three sites may not save you the aggravation of combing the racks at the record store, but their searching mechanisms are probably a cut above the ones you'd employ there (ever tried to find what you're looking for when it's not alphabetized?). And if nothing else, they require a lot less effort of you.
By Urmila Rajagopal
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