Nothing Like That New Album Smell

I want to talk about music for a second. More importantly I want to talk about digital music and how the internet has changed the music industry. So prepare to be bored.

Not really. I actually want to talk about my relationship with the internet and digital music.

I have a love/hate relationship with mp3s. I always have. There is an upside and downside to being able to download music. Let's start at the beginning.

Napster was awesome. It was the first time that free music was so easily available. It was the first time when the internet was finally working productively in my life.

And then I found out I hated Napster. I didn't hate getting music from Napster, I loved that. What I hated was how Napster changed my music buying experience.

I'm a huge Zao fan. When they put out their self-titled album, I had downloaded most or all of that album on Napster and enjoyed it very much. And then I got a pay check, went to Record and Tape Traders and bought the album. But having already heard the album, I wasn't excited. Sure, I put the record into my cd player and listened to it while I drove home but the excitement of hearing the album start to finish for the first time was gone. And I realized that by downloading songs off the album on Napster at different times and listening to them out of order, killed my previous oy in buying cds and listening to them in my car for the first time.

Now I have positive memories of digital music. The late great mp3.com was a great way to browse by genre and check out and find new artist. Epitonic used to be an amazing site to discover great indie and post rock bands.

But I still live in the place of having no excitment buying records. To start, there are no real stores that are music stores anymore (Record and Tape Traders and Tower being out of business) and even Best Buy has cut back their music and dvd second BIG time. Whenever I buy a cd now it's something I already own a digital copy of and have heard. I'm just padding my cd collection by buying albums.

All of this to say, I miss the days of buying a huge stack of cds and getting home to listen to them for the first time.