There’s finally some real competition on the DRM-free major label music store front. Amazon.com launched their amazonmp3 service today; selling DRM-free music both from major labels Universal and EMI and from independents. The price is certainly right, with single tracks going for 89 or 99 cents, and albums selling for anywhere between $5.69 and $9.99. Compare this to Apple’s iTunes Plus store, where tracks are $1.29 apiece and albums are generally between $9.99 and $15.00. I look forward to trying the new service, and will certainly prefer to use it over iTunes for tracks that are available on both stores.  If you want more information, Ars Technica has a fairly comprehensive overview of the store at in their news pages.

Interestingly enough, as I’m writing this the #2 most popular song on Amazon’s store is Feist’s 1234, recently featured in a commercial for Apple’s new video-capable iPod Nano.