I am a huge music fan. My two Ipods are filled to the brim, I have books upon books of CDs telling the stories of musicians through the past 40 years and I still pay a monthly fee to stream Rhapsody while at work. I'm a sucka for people suggesting what to try out, so 'round Tuesday is a fun day to review my inbox. See, Tuesday is the magical day when new music hits the stands, both in the brick/mortar world and online.

Obviously, different retailers take different approaches to enticing the public to come into their shops so I wanted to provide two specific examples of what's going on out there in the ongoing effort to get more of your cash for tunes.

ITunes - Yes, Apple helped revolutionize the way we purchase music online and how we listen to it. They also are very tight and effective when it comes to telling people what's coming out. This email seen here is a tad light on content, but the layout is what I really like. There are three distinct message and approaches here.

1 - Top push area. Here, they are selling the idea of the Class of 2008 with some hot artists that have emerged this year. This allows them to push theme-based campaigns by just bunching up existing material.

2 - New Releases. This is where my eyes always go first. Album cover, title of disc and artist: done. Even if it's an artist I don't care about, I at least have a finger on the pulse on what's going on in the world of music.

3 - Finally, the Top Ten. Oh, how our society loves lists! Let me know what other people are digging and perhaps, it may fit with what I like. This speaks to the middle of the road buyer that may just be in a buying mood for new stuff or finally have a name and face to put with that track they heard on the radio the other day.

Clean, effective and tight are how I'd describe the weekly ITunes New Music Tuesday emails.

On the exact oppostie tip is Newbury Comics, a New England-based music/novelty/trinkets/comic chain. Newbury is mainly for the down-and-dirty music fans, the ones that prefer buying local to national and might mull over the merits of purchasing a Pee Wee Herman bobblehead vs. a speaking Mr. T keychain while picking up the latest CD releases.

On a best practices level, there's way too much content in here and the subject line (5/26 Newbury Comics Coupons and New Releases) is a bit bland for me. But for a devoted fan of their approach, it's hard to tear this thing apart. See you after about a mile of email....

Hey, you're back! Wow, that's a long email. If someone was to ask me why someone would keep an email in their inbox and go back to it (known as Total Open Rate), this is what I would present as Exhibit A. I mean, there's a lot here to take in but it seems to fit the 'throw it all in there' brand that Newbury has. I'd be interested to hear about open rates, click-throughs and such from N.C., especially that little Forward To A Friend icon that appears at the bottom, a bit neglected if you ask me. There's plenty of buyable items, but are people using the coupons and actually taking some course of action?