jasoncross.org

I really enjoy the Zune software and marketplace, and the subscription thing is great. But I’ve often been disappointed at the way some of the music I look for simply isn’t available. Not for subscription, not for sale, not “Album only” sales, nothing. I go and look in iTunes, and it’s there. The Zune folks say they have over 6 million tracks, but I’m honestly not sure how many iTunes has (I last heard 12 million, but that was some time ago), and this may be a meaningless metric anyway.

So I’m making a list, out of curiosity. After the jump you’ll find some of the albums they don’t have on the Zune marketplace, but do have on iTunes. Sometimes the album and tracks are in the database, just unavailable for purchase/download.

Help me make my list, won’t you? Post in the comments some of the songs or albums you can’t find available in the Zune marketplace. (If you’d like to play along but don’t have the Zune software, just go download it. It’s free.) I just started. What follows is a partial list, by no means complete, just some of the first things I found. But I figured I’d solicit some help before I got too far along.

Not in the Zune Marketplace, but in iTunes:

Halo 1, 2, or 3 soundtracks. (seriously…Halo)

Miley Cyrus – Party in the U.S.A. (uh, barf…but it’s #3 on the Billboard Hot 100)

Nothing from Blizzard’s game soundtracks – no World of Warcraft or Starcraft

Assassin’s Creed soundtrack ( they have The Chosen hip-hop single, but not the full soundtrack)

Street Fighter 4 soundtrack

King of Kong  movie soundtrack

Grand Theft Auto IV soundtrack (not Vladivostok FM, which they do have)

Update:

I kind of gave up on this. I spent several hours looking for things, and I found a few (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers self-titled 1976 debut album, The Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldiers), but for the most part I found that if it appeared iTunes has something that Zune Marketplace did not, it was because Zune has the re-release a year or two later.

iTunes definitely has considerably more tracks, but given the propensity of the music industry to re-release and re-master and issue compilations and stuff, you don’t actually miss out on that much stuff on Zune. I wish they’d shore up their video game soundtrack selection, especially given how buddy-buddy Zune and Xbox are. And the Halo thing is still terribly embarrassing.