I Could Get Really Poor

I think I’d heard about Amazon’s MP3 store a while ago (I know it is not a new service), but a co-worker was talking about it at lunch today. I had a pause in my work today and decided to check it out. I have to say that they’ve nailed the buying experience - I didn’t think anyone could beat Apple money extraction system that is iTMS, but they did it.

You install a little down loader app and then when you check out, the browser downloads an AMZ file which kicks off the the down loader.  You can tell the download where to put downloaded files and it will nicely add them to iTunes or Windows Media Play for you.

The process sort of goes like:

• See an album you’re interested in.
• Listen to the previews
• “Wow, that’s cool”  - click -
• You are now $9 poorer and one album richer
• Repeat

Those that knew me in college know I had a pretty bad music habit. Tom Crawford and I used to joke that while some people got addicted to drugs and alcohol, we had a serious music addiction.  We’d be jonzing for the latest Cargo fax of all the cool dance imports from Europe and elsewhere that the owner of Rushmor Records was kind enough to give Tom fresh off the fax machine.  During his Monday afternoon show we’d poor over it and order way too much stuff.

I distinctly remember a trip to Chicago for the day where Reckless Records, Gramaphone, and Dr. Wax (which I think is closed now) took several hundred dollars of my college student money.

I suppose if we were snorting 8-balls of coke every week, there’d be less to show for it.  Besides my health, I for have several containers of CD’s in my basement (they’ve long been digitized) along with a healthy crate of vinyl (that I want to digitized but lack a turntable). My liver can handle that.

Nonetheless, iTunes Music Store has always been pretty cool, but the DRM there has made me hesitate to buy anything.  Amazon just greased the wheels a little and now I’m having to muster massive amounts of willpower not to go on a huge music buying bender. Here’s hoping I stay on the wagon.