SongBoom Get Your Music On!

MP3SkyLine might have the largest catalog of any site yet, with over 2,200,000 tracks available online - easily more than any other site I've reviewed. With daily updates of 200-400 albums per day (and one free downloadable track per day to boot), this might also be the most updated site around. MP3SkyLine accepts credit cards as payment options.

Downloading is a little easier at MP3SkyLine than some other sites - once you decide you want a song, you simply click on the download button (or use a download manager) after you've found the track or album you want. Most other sites I've tested require you click a little box next to the track you want, and then later confirm you want to purchase the track before you actually download it. This site has a simple one-step method for downloading, meaning you need less clicks to get your music on.

A new feature of MP3SkyLine which trumps the pre-listening capability every other website out there is SkyLive.fm - which is basically their entire catalog of over 2,300,000 tracks available at your fingertips for listening in great quality (I am guessing 128kbps). This service is free, and doesn't even require that you sign up at the main site. You can listen to anything in the catalog, which is something that no other site offers. Even if you aren't interested in purchasing music, I strongly suggest taking a look at SkyLive.fm.

The quality of the MP3s seems to be at 192kbps or greater. A large number of tracks are labeled "VBR" for variable bit rate; however, one track I downloaded was actually 192kbps and not VBR, despite the VBR label. Downloads are fast: I experienced about 600KB/s download rate with a DSL connection.

Normal pre-listening is also available, with samples being composed of 3 or more cuts of the track. Like usual the previews are lower quality, but free. Most tracks cost $0.20, but if a track is over 20MB (which is usually not the case), it costs more. Some collections (e.g. a 150MB single track file) cost $1.80 for the entire collection instead of a per-track price, which seems to be a great deal.

Another interesting feature of MP3SkyLine is that the sources of all of the tracks are listed as well: for example, some MP3's are made from the original vinyl records (rare items, singles, promos, etc), with some very unusual things marked "radio" (long mixes done by DJ's and the like, it seems).

MP3SkyLine accepts credit cards to refill your account balance. You can purchase credits in amounts of $20, $35, or $45. If you purchase $35 or more you directly get a bonus: for $35 or $45 you get $5 extra; a payment of $45 gets you $10 in free credits for a total of $55.

If you want a straight-up music provider with a big selection - minus the bells and whistles that can often just be annoyances that other sites have - then MP3SkyLine could be right for you.

Features Matrix

This table illustrates the features offered by MP3SkyLine. Please make sure to check the comparison matrix for a side-by-side comparison of all of the sites reviewed at SongBoom.com!