i'm with derek on the mostly album download. i don't find that listening to the 30 second track snippet is all that helpful. even downloading an individual song which may be great won't necessarily give you a good representation of the disc. a case in point is the serena maneesh disc, which isn't all as great as the the one pretty awesome song, (with which i know you're familiar since i put it on almost all of your xmas discs) 'drain cosmetics' would suggest.

so exclaim is a good reference point, as is pitchfork, and other online review sites. i'll usually have a few browser windows open and will go back and forth, searching emusic for artists i've read about at allmusic or elsehwere. if you want to download some free individual tracks, try sites like betterpropaganda.com , salon , or insound which usually offer a hit or two per band and have a good selection of artists. at some point, though, it's a leap of faith and i either end up with treasure (the submarines) or trash (herbert) but at $3.00 or less a cd, it's not going to be too much of a hit in the pocketbook.

not sure if you're using emusic but for those who are and haven't done so already, they have a two-track sinead o'conner disc for free. i like both tracks quite a bit.