Anybody know of a good place to buy MP3's? Most of them allow you to download the song once then your SOL if your HD crashes and you didn't back it up. Anybody know of a place that keeps track of your purchases and lets you redownload whenever? Or perhaps just a smaller lesser known site that is good for buying MP3's. If I have to I can buy them from iTunes but would rather not if can be helped.

 

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I buy all my stuff on iTunes. For a little extra you can get the DMR free version and I've heard that eventually all the stuff will be that way.

 

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Any place but iTunes.

iTunes is ruining the way fans hear and listen to music.

 

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while i don't disagree with your first statement one bit, could you elaborate on the second.

 

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Yeah I wanna hear this.

 

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i like using Amazon, just remember that if you don't like edited songs, that they will have EXPLICIT after it(if there are two versions) i got hosed once on that.

also Zune is now 85% DRM free, which is cool... although i got hosed there because some of my favorite music is laced with the original DRM and i can't play it on my car radio via a mix cd... the bastards.

 

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Ah sorry, forgot about this thread....

So I'll give you the short version, developed most likely from working at a recording studio for a decade.

Groups in the past often put a lot into an Album as a thing in itself... from a central theme or style, right down to an ongoing story. This even could go as far as touching on the artwork on the album (where a lot of my work focused).

These days, thanks in large part to iTunes, groups are looking to get a Single out, and album is an afterthought, if a thought at all. In thinking in such a small, narrow field we are losing something.
iTunes is making the "producer made" music syndrome worse because an "artist" (which can be ANYONE now thanks to auto-tune these day) can be anyone that looks good enough to put on a video or to use in promotional material to sell a Single.

We don;t listen to albums anymore, which were themselves a work of art.... now we listen to the hot single. It's much like going from reading Books, to looking for this week's hot Sentence, and I personally think we are losing something very, very important, not only in the way we listen to music, but the way in which we think about and associate with the artists themselves.


Not too long ago, music lovers would hear a single and then anticipate the release of the album. Listeners would then often go on to learn more about the artists in order to for a more personal feeling relationship with them, and this would further spur the anticipation of the next song and album and concert tour.
Now we have a single... period, the end. No one much cares who it's even from, or if it's associated with an album that might contain more music expanding on the theme.


This new trend really pains me, especially as someone that used to work with bands to help bring their theme and messages together into a more cohesive whole, to transport the listener to a new world, a new story, a new idea.
Now... that hardly ever goes on... and it happened so quickly, and it's gaining velocity.


eh... that's enough for a quick rant, but I could go on much further than anyone wants to read.
It isn't iTunes alone, but they are the biggest target.

 

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Sorry but there are very few artists that I have listened to where their whole album was worth listening to or even had a "theme". I think you read too much into the whole album thing. I much prefer being able to pick and choose which songs I like and buy them for $1 then buying a $15 cd and only liking/listening to 1-2 songs on it.

The music industry needs to adjust to the listening tastes of their audience, not force the audience to listen to what they are told to listen to. I am glad they are moving this way, perhaps they will actually make better songs overall since each one has to stand on its own and cannot rely on the hit single to hold them up.

EDIT: Amazon doesn't allow you to download songs more than once just like iTunes or any other place I have found.

 

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You completely missed my points Stony... oh well.


It wasn't ME reading way too much into it either, but the artists I've worked with and been a fan of over the years.


This has Nothing to do with the big evil record companies either, but the artists.


You can "win" this thread if you want, I just don't care enough to continue the debate.

 

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good points Phantom, i know what you're saying. You got that a LOT with classic rock(esp. groups like Pink Floyd) where the whole album was a journey for your mind to be taken down. I hate to add this category of music after naming Pink, but electronic music was(maybe still is?) the same way, the DJ spun his rhythms in a sync that tied into the following tracks and was a continuous trip too. What genre did you deal with the most?


I also know what Stoney is getting at, having spent tons of my late teens/early 20s money on discs and TRYING to get into the full CD, just to be let down when the artists seemed to have "quit" after making a few truly meaningful tracks.

 

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