In the spirit of Memorial Day, all day today I’m going to provide you with top five lists that just might change your life. More than that, with everyone out at backyard BBQ’s watching their Blue Ray players or doing anything but being in front of their computers, the news day is slow. Before I join their ranks, let me present you with the top five digital music sites.

Amie Street

If you want Indie music, then Amie Street is the place to go. You are going to get DRM free music from bands like the Bare Naked Ladies and the Presidents of the United States. More interesting, however, is their pricing model. A song starts out costing nothing, and as more people download that song the price increases to about .98 cents. Thus, you pay for what’s actually good. The selection is good from my point of view, but if you’re looking for your favorite pop icons you’re out of luck.

eMusic

eMusic is a prize pony of the DRM free music world. It’s a subscriptions service that gives you a set number of song downloads per month depending on how much you are willing to pay. Once again, most of the music you are going to find in the system is on the indie side of the strip. If there is any problem with the system, it’s that they try to sell you on the subscription right from the beginning. There is no way to really explore the library.

iTunes

iTunes is further down this unordered list because as of now, all of its songs are DRM’d. As a result, if you happened to be one of the five people on the planet who own a Zune, you’d be unable to move your tracks from your iTunes account to that device. They also have problems with restoring your collection should your computer burst into flames. What’s nice about iTunes is that you get a wide selection of songs for relatively little money (.98 cents). Not only that, since almost everyone owns an iPods some of iTune’s limitations are a non-issue.

Pandora

You can’t buy music directly from Pandora, but I had to add it to the list. This is a fantastic product for musical discovery. You start with a song that you already like, and then using the Music Genome Project it streams other songs that sound similar. You can’t go backwards or forwards through the list, and sometimes the picks are a bit off but for the most part it’s a radio station without all the music that would usually make you cringe. If you really like a song, you can purchase the track from the iTunes music store.

Grooveshark

Consider Grooveshark the polygamous marriage between Last.fm, iTunes and Kazaa. It’s a legal, peer to peer file sharing network that lets you discover music in much the same way that Pandora does. They are currently in closed ALPHA, so it’s difficult to get a great feel of what the final product will look like, but from what I’ve seen it is pretty slick. Another interesting facet is the pricing model, not only do the artists and labels receive a cut of every song sold but the person who is actually sharing the song does as well.

Web 2.0 Roundup

Before you go out to your closest lake to enjoy a nice healthy pile of hamburgers and hot dogs (if you happen to reside in the States), why not make yourself a mix-CD. With the help of these sites, that Backstreet Boys compilation album you have always wanted is only a few mouse slicks away.

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