Here, we provide a substantial—ever-growing—list of the best places to shop for independent music beyond iTunes and Amazon, complete with brief summaries and highlights of each site.




Have you shopped any of the stores below?
If you have, register with us, then share your experience with others on groovemine.com in the comment window at the bottom of the page.






Think Indie
[website]



Well, we came across Think Indie as we first started researching for Groovemine. They've since gone through a redseign and reorganization, but still consider themselves in "prelaunch"....however, they are open for business. Given their name—and, more importantly, their chosen focus of content—we thought to plug them at the top of our list for now.

Thinkindie is a consortium of indie record stores who wanted to better serve the musical needs of their customers. The stores are located in cities across the United States and are active in local music scenes, community events, and small business associations. Click on the "Find Indie" menu item in the left column to see picks from the individual stores that participate in this site.





eMusic



Highlights: good pricing packages; Get 25 FREE iPod® compatible downloads from eMusic! Choose from over 4.0 Million songs!If you start a subscription on the spot, you get 50 FREE downloads. Worth it to join for a month!

A subscription-based service, eMusic is the world’s largest retailer of independent music and the world’s second-largest digital music retailer overall, with more than 5 million tracks from over 40,000 independent labels and nearly 6,500 titles from top audio book publishers. Despite their size, the collection is focused on independent artists and classic recordings...some you know, others more obscure.





Other Music
[website]



Highlights: wide-ranging inventory, very informative e-newsletter (sign up!); video content of in-store performances and footage of their trip to SXSW music festival

Also a brick-and-mortar store in NYC, Other Music boasts a fantastic collection of music, perhaps one of the more eclectic inventories you’ll find anywhere. Genres include: American Roots, Classical, Electronic, Funk/Soul, Hip-Hop, In, International Pop, Jazz, Out, Psychedelia/Progressive, Reggae/Dub, Then, World.





Aimie Street
[website]



Highlights: Solid, wide-range selection of independent music. If you want to shop by genre, they've categorized their music in more genres than, perhaps, any other online store.

On Amie Street, the users determines the price of music. Every song starts cheap (or even free!) and increases in price up to 98 cents as more and more people purchase it. Cheap songs or albums suggest they're new to the site and/or undiscovered; conversely, when you pay top price—relatively speaking—for an album, you know that a lot of people think it's really good.





Insound
[website]



Highlights: Solid independent music you’ve heard of and then some. They sell vinyl and merchandise, in addition to MP3s, ...over 5000 free downloads spanning the past 10 years...they avoid grouping music by genre and we like that

From their “about us”: Insound was born in 1998, a glimmer in the eye of a bunch of indie rock kids who wanted to make the mail-order business better. Tired of perforated catalog pages, licking stamps and watching as dozens of Amazon-alikes sprouted up with no mind for underground excited, Insound officially launched on March 1, 1999. We have grown up from three guys and a machine, to a proud, successful mainstay of the indie rock community.





Fina
[website]

Highlights: distributes significant indie rock and cross-over indie electronica

Fina is, especially, focused on harder to find music and self-released titles. In addition, all of their digital downloads are DRM-Free MP3's encoded at 320kbps. Fina is owned and operated by Thrill Jockey Records, but they distribute/sell music from MANY other independent labels.





Anthology Recordings
[website]



Highlights: all digital reissues, well-designed site, good accompanying editorial content

A great find...Anthology Recordings is the world’s first ever all digital reissue label, its goal to provide an online outlet for rare and out-of-print music of all eras, genres and cultures. Download single tracks, full albums, and even original artwork by all of these important artists – plus dozens more – at competitive rates. To launch the Anthology sampler player, click here.

Genres include:  Afro-Beat, Avant Garde, Blues, Classical, Disco, Electronica, Exotica, Experimental, Folk, Folk Rock, Funk, Garage, Hard Rock, Hardcore, Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, Jazz, Latin, Latin Psyschedelia, New Release, New Wave, Pop, Post Punk, Power Pop, Progressive, Proto Metal, Proto Punk, Psychedelia, Punk, R&B, Reggae & Dub, Rock, Singer-Songwriter, Soul, Soundtrack, Spoken Word, World




payplay.fm
[website]

Highlights: search for music by moods, release date, and type from live performance to soundtrack; unprotected MP3 format for $0.88 or protected WMA format for $0.77;  better sound quality than iTunes, 192kbps VBR, 20% cheaper

Genres include:  Avant Garde, Blues, Classical, Country, Easy Listening, Electronic, Folk, Gospel, Hip Hop/Rap, Jazz, Kids/Family, Latin, Metal, New Age, Pop, Rock, Spoken Word, Urban/R&B, World.





Shopping sites sponsored by record labels you may be able to find tracks by the artists they represent at slightly cheaper prices than other MP3 stores.



Six Degrees
[website]

Six Degrees is an eclectic, independent music label that produces and markets genre-bending, accessible recordings that explore world music, ambient, folk, contemporary classical and intelligent pop music

Artists include: Lal Meri, Alice Russell, Banco de Gaia, Bebel Gilberto, Karsh Kale, Vieux Farka Touré, Cheb i Sabbah, and others





Sub Pop
[website]

Original home to Nirvana, Soundgarden and Mudhoney. While much of the music industry has been desperately trying to put the brakes on declining sales, Sup Pop has been giving away music by top-sellers and working with unorthodox business models.

Artists include: Fleet Foxes, Foals, CSS, The Go! Team, Handsome Furs, The Termals, The Vaselines, the Postal Service, and others





Arts & Crafts
[website]

Artists include: Broken Social Scene, Constantines, Feist, Gonzales, Los Campesinos, The Dears, Phoenix, The Stills, and others





Merge Records
[website]

Artists include: M. Ward, Versus, Arcade Fire, Camera Oscura, Buzzcocks, Dinosaur Jr., Spoon, Superchunk, The Magnetic Fields, and others





Matador Records
[website]

Artists include: A.C. Newman, Cat Power, The New Pornogrpahers, Yo La Tengo, Spoon, Mogwai, Lou Reed, and others





!K7
[website]

Artists include: A Guy Called Gerald, Annie, Beth Hirsh, Bomb the Bass, Bozoo Bajou, Hot Chip, Nightmares on Wax, Playgroup, Thievery Corporation, The Rapture, and others




Domino Recording Company
[website]

Artists include: Junior Boys, Franz Ferdinand, Animal Collective, The Kills, Four Tet, Ulrich Schnauss, The Notwist, Clinic, and others





Beggars Group
[website]

Artists include: Elvis Perkins, Friendly Fires, Peaches, Ratatat, The Horrors, Micachu, Jack Peñate, and others





Stones Throw
[website]

Artists include: J Dilla, Savath & Savalas, Madvillian,  Madlib, Heliocentrics, James Pants, Yesterdays New Quintet, Dudley Perkins, and more





Nublu
[website]

Artists include: 3 Na Massa, Wax Poetic, Brazilian Girls, Love trio, Kudu, Wonderland, Kino, and others