the immediacy of want.
Ok, Itunes officially rocks. Well, maybe not rocks, but drones. 
I was astounded to see Lustmord listed in the Itunes store today… four cds worth! It’s just… bizzare to see stuff from such a specialized genre (dark industrial death ambient drone whateveryouwanttocallit) available for purchase.
To me this is a good thing - these are not disks that are easy to find, except via mail order. I never could see the value in picking up a CD you can just as easily pick up at Best Buy or Wallmart… the real value of something like Itunes is being able to find stuff like this - and buy it. Yeah, there are all sorts of things to worry about with DRM and the long term future of your collection (see previous comments about my Ipod :P) but in general practice, it works well enough for me. Not that i buy a lot, but i’ve picked up a few things that i’m glad to have.
I would guess that for obscure titles that people may come across while exploring, this can be nothing but a new source of revenue for the artists. At least i hope so… often, the more unusual stuff can only be found on mp3s via trades from people who have the odd disk in question. I hate mail ordering CDs… i guess i suffer from the immediacy of want.
Ah… shoutcast and internet radio is the best thing to ever happen to music. I almost never listen to regular radio anymore. You know how you often hear tunes on tv from years ago and no matter how horrible the song was, you tend to know it and could probably sing along? It warms my soul to know that many of the young people growing up today will, if they choose to, can grow up and hear a song that was ‘popular’ when they were young and not even recognize it.
That, to me, rocks.
- pirotunes: Lustmord - Strange Attractor from “Purifying Fire” -
September 14th, 2005 at 5:07 pm
I was astonished to find two bôa albums at iTunes - just after I had bought the second CD - although the naming “BOA (UK)” is just a bit difficult to find. Oh, and I somehow like the name “Lustmord”, although I do wonder why names based on German words are mostly based on _negative_ German words…
September 15th, 2005 at 2:51 am
I’m sorry if the email I sent you like, offended you or anything. That is, if you even recieved it. I’m sure you must get hundreds upon hundreds of fanmails/fan pics everyday, and I bet it was entirely too easy for mine to get lost. Just wondering if you got it though.
I wish I could afford an ipod. ;_;
September 15th, 2005 at 9:40 am
It is the same with any japanese music I want. I don’t like downloading it either because it just seems better to have the actual disk. (even though this puts me out money) There is some groups I like that I cannot find at conventions though and it is really a search to find. I am a collecter in such a way, I must collect everything I own.
September 15th, 2005 at 9:41 am
It’s funny, my dad was saying exactly the opposite thing about people not all knowing the same songs. I think I agree with you though. Knowing some of the stuff that’s “popular” these days, I’m so glad that I have other stuff that I can listen to.
September 15th, 2005 at 10:33 am
you can get around the DRM by buring the tunes to an audio CD than importing them to a differnt computer.
September 15th, 2005 at 10:47 am
actually, i burn audio cds for listening in the car anyway, so ya, i dont worry too much about the DRM
September 15th, 2005 at 1:23 pm
is there a particular net radio “station” that you would reccomend? you often mention artists or songs that you listen to and im curious where you discover your music from. (im allways trying to branch out into new styles to listen to)
September 15th, 2005 at 2:11 pm
There are several legit locations to get Japanese CDs but you have to pay the shipping cost. I just stack up several items since its the same cost for 1 or 4….
Examples are: http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/ or http://www.nippon-export.com
As always, YMMV.
I’m in the try then buy group… I won’t buy if I haven’t heard it via d/l - mp3 or other means but I *will* buy it if I like it. Hear that ya stupid morons up in the corporate structure? I hardly buy any domestic music anymore….
September 15th, 2005 at 4:24 pm
I had the opportunity to be a part of the Music Genome Project at http://www.pandora.com, which I think is going to be the next best thing in internet radio.
Pandora is this really nifty music program that has a library of music that is broken down by music “genomes” that people have painstakingly identified. You suggest an artist or a song that you like, and the program creates a radio station for you with other similar bands and songs, with the idea that you will be exposed to music that you haven’t heard before.
For every song they play you can say whether you like it or don’t like it, and it will start narrowing the genre down for you based on your feedback. You can add more than one type of music to each station, and as far as I know you can make unlimited stations, so the variety of things you can listen to is pretty astounding. I was in on the public beta, but I think they are going to be offering it through a subsription form soon enough.
My taste in music is sometimes similar to yours, so you may want to check and see if you can still get in on the beta (ends this month) or try it when it comes out. Wow, I didn’t mean to write a novel, but apparently I did. Yay for being bored at work.
September 15th, 2005 at 4:44 pm
“A visitor to your weblog fredart blogbits has automatically been banned by posting more than the allowed number of comments in the last 200 seconds. This has been done to prevent a malicious script from overwhelming your
weblog with comments.”
I’m pretty sure you aren’t a bot, Eric ^^;; Not sure what caused this, but i’ll take care of it later tonight, so no worries
September 17th, 2005 at 8:59 am
Internet radio indeed rocks, but to me they’re mostly US-centred. It’s lucky that here in the UK radio is still of a fantastic quality (BBC Radio 1 on a weekday night and XFM London in particular are superb to listen to, as is BBC Radio 4) compared to what I’ve heard of radio over your end. We don’t have ClearChannel! I guess internet radio and podcasting hasn’t been as popular over here because our radio hasn’t been diluuted into a crappy mush.
And while I’m rubbing things in about how the British media’s so much better than the US media, don’t you have any decent indie record stores to get hard-to-find CDs and such? I’ve got a fantastic indie store in my nearest town, and it’s got most things you’d ever think of. But no Pillows. Yet.
Although KCRW’s really good.
September 17th, 2005 at 11:55 pm
mmm… I love the free weekly single from iTunes. Keeps me partially entertained for the week.