Use the Amazon MP3 Store in Banshee Music Player

Starting with Ubuntu 11.04, the default media library software will become Banshee.  Banshee is a feature-filled application that has a lot to offer, including not only the Ubuntu Music Store (powered by 7Digital), but the Amazon MP3 Store.
For a lot of us, this is a huge deal, as Amazon offers great prices and good quality, but the MP3 downloader they have available isn’t kept very up-to-date.  Purchasing and downloading music from the Amazon MP3 Store isn’t too difficult.  Here’s how, starting with installing Banshee.

Installing Banshee

In Ubuntu 11.04, Banshee will be the default player, so this step is unnecessary, but if you’re using an older version (of either Ubuntu or Banshee), you’ll want to make sure you have the newest version of Banshee, which will include the store.  To do this, first open a Terminal.

Once the Terminal is open, type the following:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:banshee-team/ppa
You’ll likely be asked for your password, so provide that.  Ubuntu will go through the process of adding the Banshee Team PPA to your sources file, as well as adding the encryption key.  When this is finished (it should only take a few seconds), type:
sudo apt-get update
This will update your packages, so the new version of Banshee is visible to your package manager.  If you have an old version of Banshee, type the following:
sudo apt-get upgrade
This will overwrite your old version of Banshee with the new one.  If you don’t have Banshee installed, simply type the following to install it:
sudo apt-get install banshee
This will install Banshee, along with its requirements.  Go ahead and close the Terminal window; you’re now ready to use Banshee.

Using Banshee with the Amazon MP3 Store

First, start Banshee.  It can be found in the Applications menu under Sound & Video.

When it opens, you’ll see Banshee’s main interface.  As shown, no items have been added to its library, but if you’ve already been using Banshee, your songs will appear.

Take note of the last few items in the left sidebar, the Online Media section.

As you might imagine, we want the Amazon MP3 Store entry.  Click it, and the Amazon MP3 Store will load, right in your Banshee window.

As you can see, this is the standard interface that you’d see if you opened your browser to the Amazon MP3 Store.  The first thing we’ll do is sign in.  Even if you’ve used the Amazon MP3 Store through your browser, you’ll need to do this.  So, click the Sign in link at the top of the page.

When the sign-in page loads, fill in your credentials.  From now on, Banshee will remember them.

You can now search, browse and see recommendations on the Amazon MP3 Store, just as you could through the browser.  You can even listen to previews.  This is pretty nice integration, since this feature – in your browser – requires the Flash plugin.  Banshee, however, is able to do this without, so previews work, just as you’d expect, except it’s Banshee playing the preview, instead of Flash.

When you’re ready to purchase an item, just click the Get MP3 Album button.

Depending on how you’ve set your 1-Click purchase settings, you may now be asked for your information, or the purchase might go through immediately.

You’ll now see a new element appear at the bottom of your sidebar.  This is your purchase being downloaded directly to your hard drive, from within Banshee.

There is no need to install the Amazon MP3 Downloader, as Banshee does it all for you.  When the download is complete, your music will be placed in your music library, properly tagged and with cover art ready to go.

Before that, however, notice that a new option is available in the Amazon MP3 Store.  Amazon recently launched their Cloud Player, which allows users to listen to their purchases wherever they are, as long as they have an Internet connection.
Users get 5 GB for free, but with the purchase of any album, that is bumped to 20 GB for a full year.  To add your purchase to your Cloud Drive, so it can be accessed with the Cloud Player, click the button shown below:

Your music (once you’ve accepted the Cloud Drive/Cloud Player terms and conditions), will appear and be available, for free, from over the Web.

And that’s it!  With just a few steps, you have intalled Banshee, set up the Amazon MP3 Store, purchased an album, downloaded it into your Desktop music library, and made it available to you through the Cloud Player.  Not bad!