Perhaps Best Buy’s not too keen on being No. 3 in music sales these days, with digital-only retailer Apple on top and Amazon hot on its heels?

The Minnesota-based retail giant made its push into the digital music space today with the announcement of Best Buy’s acquisition of Napster—you know, the company that started this whole MP3-is-king listening generation? Included in Best Buy’s aggregate purchase price of about $121 million would be the roughly 700,000 subscribers to Napster’s web-only service.

“We believe Napster brings us excellent capabilities in the mobility space, as well as international operations and an established team of technology experts,” said Dave Morrish, executive vice president – connected digital solutions of Best Buy. “We can foresee Napster acting as a platform for accelerating our growth in the emerging industry of digital entertainment, beyond music subscriptions. We’re very excited to add these capabilities to leverage our existing relationships with the labels, the studios, and the hardware providers. We believe Napster will be an outstanding addition to our already robust portfolio of partners and offerings in the digital music space.”

We’ll look forward to seeing the Napster logo plastered all over our neighborhood Best Buy, and to whatever other partnerships this might lead to.

We know Best Buy just started peddling Apple’s iPhone, and has been selling iPods for years, so now you’ll be able to have your entire digital music shopping all set at Best Buy (or Napster Powered by Best Buy, or however they want to call it).

Arlen Schweiger - Editor of Electronic House Magazine

Arlen writes about home technology installations and product news and reviews for electronichouse.com and Electronic House magazine.