Stretching the digital purse strings of impulse buyers to the breaking point, Google kicked off its new Google Music service with an awesome sale for the holiday season, wherein hundreds of thousands of albums and individual tracks were priced at half off. Though the promotion was marked as a limited time offer when it began in mid-December. Hark, but Christmas has come and gone, and the sale doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. What are you waiting for? Go buy music now, because it isn’t any cheaper anywhere else, and it might not be so for long.

If you haven’t checked out the music in the Android Market yet, here’s the deal: half a million albums are marked down to $4.99, plus a few cents for taxes depending on where you live. The songs inside said albums, in case you can’t spare five bucks because of your heinous Starbucks addiction, are a mere $.49. I’m not exaggerating when I say there’s some fantastic deals to be had here; even though Google Music’s catalog isn’t quite as sprawling as iTunes or the Amazon MP3 Store, there’s so much variety here that you’re bound to find something you like.

And of course the music itself is only part of what google Music offers. There’s also the free streaming to any browser or Android phone, plus up to 20,000 songs worth of free storage for the music you’ve already got. Unlike the 10 Billion Apps promotion these prices aren’t being matched by Google’s competitors, so make sure and check to see if you can get it cheaper in the Android Market before trying other places. Google still hasn’t mentioned an end time for the promotion, but New Year’s Day or just afterwards seems likely.

On a slightly related note: Google, we really need gift card for the Android Market. If you’re going to sell books, movies and music just like everyone else, please give us a mechanism for giving them to our friends.

[via Cnet]