Much cheaper than iTunes et al. You prepay for a certain number of downloads per month, but it works out to a fraction of the 99 cents iTunes charges. (You can also add additional tracks if you use those use.)

Downloads are in MP3 format. The exact quality of the encoding (including the metadata) is more a function of the label than emusic itself, but typically they are VBR and, worst case, at least 128k CBR.

They don’t have the same major label participation that iTunes has, but they do have an excellent selection of smaller labels with the kinds of music Honey’s readers might want. Shanachie and Document alone could keep you busy listening to blues and folk by themselves, never mind the jazz and R&B they have. They also have a lot of great spoken word stuff on there, from Jello Biafra’s political screeds to readings by Kerouc to comedy from Lenny Bruce. They even have some albums that weren’t released on CD but have been ripped from LP!

The first 50 downloads are free, so try it out. http://www.emusic.com/search.html?mode=l&QT=yazoo&x=0&y=0 and http://www.emusic.com/search.html?mode=l&QT=document&x=27&y=5 should keep yoy busy for a while…