thanks guys i think ive sussed it via amazon at least.
i want to avoid having to subscibe to a particular site and pay yet another subscription which would lock me in forever or lose the music.
initially i thought amazon was the same when it said the music would be saved to your playlist on their site but then i realised there was a download option so i bought the beatles blue album as a test and it worked i was able to download it to the laptop then to a usb. so it looks like ive got at least one source. even then almost straight away i got an email encouraging me to pay 7.99 and subscibe to amazon music. lol.