On February 26th iTunes moved into 2nd amongst music retailers. And I said this:
“(Behind Wal-Mart. Which sucks, because I’m ready for iTunes to be #1. Wal-Mart carries a crappy, streamlined, force-fed selection of music appropriate only for fans of top 40, pop, and country-western music. No, no, and no.) iTunes will pass Wal-Mart eventually.”
Welp, now they’re #1.
Now all they have to do is set my music free. I’ve already started experimenting with Amazon. At first it wouldn’t work for me, and their customer service tried pretty darn hard to fix it. They were great, but we couldn’t get it to work. I recently tried again with no problems.
What’s most interesting though is that 3 times in the recent past I haven’t used iTunes or Amazon or any retailer at all. I bought directly from the artist: Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, and The Raconteurs. The NIN downloads failed big time. But after a couple weeks their customer service fixed the problem for me.
I’m ready to use whatever means is simplest, fairest, and most open in buying music from my favorite artists. iTunes will have to remove their DRM though. But if the artist sells directly, that’s where I’ll get my tunes.
I like the Elvis Costello model for his new album where it will be released on vinyl only with codes included to download the free mp3s. So you got your record for home and the free mp3s for your ipod. Sweet deal.