The rusty bottle opener of truth

So, a long time ago, in a galaxy far away, I decided to get an account with a site called eMusic. I wanted to listen to new and interesting music, to slowly increase my collection of music, and so forth.

Then I left them, because they'd got rid of the ability to redownload music from them, changed it from X songs a month to 'your subscription in cash plus a bonus for subscribing, get songs of variable value from that credit', and because (likely as a result of this) there were several bands leaving them.

Since then, largely due to general lack of extended employment, I've not replaced that with anything. I am considering doing so now.

The main contender would be a paid-for spotify account. It would have to be paid for, as listening to ads really irritates me (I have a very good retention of what I hear, so the jingles get stuck in my head).

But is there anything else? Decent selection, not too expensive, lets me slowly expand what I'm listening to, but also either makes it incredibly easy to listen to the new stuff (a la Spotify) or gives me some impetus to get new stuff (as having 30-40 new tracks a month did on eTarget?

Also, second question, if I end up going for Spotify, are there any particularly good deals to start off on?