If you combined MySpace with a DRM-free online music store and throw in a Darwinist market philosophy you end up with Amie St.

Amie St. has provided a place where independent musicians can find new fans, network and sell their music. There’s a catch though. New songs start out free and rise in price depending on popularity. I can see what they’re trying to do here. Musicians who aggressively promote their music (and hence the service) have the most to gain as their songs rise in price. New music junkies are encouraged to boost the popularity of unknown tracks because those are the least expensive ones on the service.

The site provides great tools for finding artists, sampling music, sharing and ultimately buying. There’s a pop up player for sampling unpurchased tracks and listening to previously bought ones. You can ‘rec’ tracks to other listeners by writing mini reviews. You can make friends with other users and become a ‘fan’ of a band. All the great features you would expect to find on a social network.

I set up a profile, threw $10 into the mix and got started sampling and buying music. One thing about the service puzzles me though. The streaming music samples only contain a portion of the song. But many of the songs that you stream can be had for free or only a few cents. I would think it would encourage more people to spend money if they could stream the entire song and then buy the track for something more than free. This model is sure to be controversial since it takes quite a bit of buying to get up to the standard $.99 per track. Heck, some entire albums can be had for free.

Business model aside, the service works well. All tracks you purchase are kept available online so you can launch their player when you are logged in and enjoy the music you’ve bought. I also must say that $10 buys a lot of music on this site. I have a bunch of tracks in my profile and I think I’ve spent less than a dollar. I’m not sure how good that is for musicians but it works for music lovers on a tight budget.

One feature I would like to see with this service would be a bulk download feature. If you purchase an album you must then take the time to individually download each song. It would be more convenient to be able to select a group of songs, hit download and have them transferred to your hard drive.

These are small quibbles though. I hope that we see more DRM-free offerings in the future that can help musicians get heard while earning them some money for their art.

[tags]Social Media, Music, Commerce, MP3. Amie St[/tags]