I think this will shake some things up. The pricing scheme is much better than iTunes, but the interface isn’t that pretty.
I tested it out and while there’s room for improvement, it’s a great start. It’ll be interesting to see how Apple responds.

Yeah, 2 million songs – but apparently not the good stuff. A lot of artists are not to be found. And if you do find songs by the big famous ones, it’s usually rip-off karaoke versions. The big stars (and their labels) are still going to want DRM to protect their music.

That said, I would definitely like to see this DRM stuff go away. Apple, Napster, Rhapsody, et al should realize that if someone is willing to pay for songs themselves, why would they pirate them? Any song you buy ought to be playable on any player. Suppose you happen to have a certain brand of smartphone but the only music download service compatible with that phone doesn’t have a particular song you want? Etc. etc.

Furthermore, I think the pricing structure ought to be more flexible, rather than all-songs-99-cents or whatever. Some CD’s you buy are so old-school (maybe from the 80’s) that they’re only $6.98 at your local Best Buy. So then if you buy each song of that album from the internet, it’s still 99 cents a song? Why? Why not have some songs 10 cents, others 50 cents, others (like hot new releases) 99 cents? Why not more flexibility? And why not offer songs downloadable at full CD quality, maybe for a few cents more? Well, that’s my two cents!

256Kbps MP3 is not the same quality as 256Kbps AAC. It is roughly the same quality as 128Kbps AAC-P (the default DRM iTunes format) but is twice the file size.

I’ll admit it was amusing to download one directly to my iPhone from Amazon using wget though.

Tax Man: nice post and great use of mobile tech!
Thedot: I’m with you on that. You might not find every song or album that you want, but the lack of DRM combined with the price savings is compelling. I give it a few weeks before another big music player adds their music to the store.
John: looks like U.S. only for now.

I’ve just been to the Amazon site (have to use co.uk) and unless they have it on a secret page, I couldn’t find anything about it.

YOU BETCHA!
I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.
No Apple DRM, No MS DRM, No lock in.
It’s about time.