Buying a Song on ITunes without subscribing to Apple Music

58 Tailfin,

Did you activate the Store? in The Music app, Preferences > General > Show iTunes Store.

If you ignore the nagging to subscribe to the streaming service, you will find the purchase process for downloads is pretty much the same as it always was. :-)

On that basis, I can reasonably assume that you are running Catalina, in which case, this may answer your query: https://support.apple.com/en-me/HT210200

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210200

I'm still using iTunes on an iMac running on Mojave. I recently downloaded an album which was a total success.

In essence, you do not need to join Apple Music.

Simply enter the iTunes store and buy your needed singles or albums from there. Just ignore any references to Catalina.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/music/mus14076f9d/mac

The beauty of iTunes is that if you wish, you can elect to purchase only the tracks you like from an album. I did this in December 2019. I just selected certain tracks , added up the cost and there was little difference between what I bought and having the entire album.

This should illustrate Apple music/iTunes for you: https://youtu.be/sm7r0pwP8Cw