No Air Supply? What the hey?

Yeah, there's an obvious bias present, that's for sure. It's an outrage.

Please mentally refiled the previous comment re Air Supply under the original Definitive 200 posting.

Darn, what little comedic effect I had hoped to have is surely gone now.

Double dang.

BTW, sorry I missed Jeff's virtual parade he threw on the occasion of your return to the blogosphere. I was at the dentist.

Funny you mention that, because I have thought about it a lot. I still download entire albums at iTunes. And when I transfer music from plasticware to the pod, I prefer to transfer all or nothing. I don't like to take the time to discern which "songs I like" vs. which I might not. But more importantly, I like to be "forced" to listen to the "other" songs until they grow on me. And I like surprises. ;-)

Which trend were you thinking would persist into eternity... your continuing purchases of ballroom dance music, or something else?

Well, I have bought a grand total of 1 discs in the last two years, maybe three in the last five. I've downloaded approximately the same number of songs. It is really hard being me.

Gwynne, Freud would have a field day with your comment, I think. ;-)

Jim, at least you have the music in your head. Assuming it can drown out the voices. Mine rarely does, but perhaps you're better at it than me.

Ever the luddite, I have yet to pay to download a song. (Not cheating, either, the only downloading I've ever done is to get demos or freebies.)

I still buy CDS.

And miss the good old days of album art my weakening eyes could see.

I still buy CDs too. Then I rip them to mp3 and put them on my iPod. If, after a certain amount of time, some songs haven't grown on me, I remove those songs. But I like having the option to give them a chance.

Then again, every time I try to go to iTunes to buy just one song I get confused by the inexplicable interface, so that might have something to do with it.

Eric,

Your comment about the voices reminds me of a song by the Judybats, called She's Sad She Said...

I said, "what music?"
She said, "the music in my head
Sometimes it makes me wish I were dead.
It's like a requiem
It's like a rodeo.
Can't you hear it?"
I said, "No."

It is very un-Abba-like. Not that I'm saying that's good or bad.

My albums outnumber singles 20 or 30 to 1. Singles-oinly is like a steady diet of movie trailers and commercials. Plus, I like to buy at the live shows, so no middleman gets a cut.

Plus, you know, support your artists, or they'll quit. Then what are you going to listen to?

OK, let me make sure I'm following you here. We should buy the crap in order to support the good stuff. I'll have to think about that one.

Of course, by "crap" what I really mean is music that I don't particularly care for, even if it is someone else's cup of tea. If it's quality music, there'll be a market for it, even if I don't choose to buy that cut.

You might also be assuming that my partial album purchases fall into the category of "one song from this album and one song from that one." In reality, it's often "all but one from this one" and "all but two from that one."

Really, it's more complicated than you make it out to be. Although the thought of some artists quitting because I don't support them frankly makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Just wondering here: if you don't buy it, how do you listen to it and know it's crap?

It's not more complicated than that at the local and regional level, either. But those guys are never going to get near Brother Jobs' Musical Emporium anyway, so as the Rev Jackson once said, "the point is moot" and I'm just jabbering OT.

Scott, you know very well that almost no musician nowadays doesn't provide at least a sample of all of their music on their websites. Not being able to listen in advance is just not an issue.

Also, you shouldn't assume that only national or international musicians get listed (if, indeed, that's the argument you're presenting with the reference to the Musical Emporium). It's easier to get into iTunes than you might think. For instance, I know a group based out of Austin whose music is nowhere to be found in any retail store in America, but you can buy all their music via iTunes. Really, why would iTunes want to exclude artists from their store? There's no carrying cost, no shelf space issues, and -- as far as I know -- no pressure from competing labels.

The world of music sales has changed, and irreversibly so. As you say, the point is probably moot, but those changes don't have to mean that independent artists will lose their audiences. If anything, the potential for the opposite to happen is now greater than ever.

OTOH, I'm not a musician, so this brave new world doesn't affect my daily bread.

I've never found the samples to be enough to make a decision, and myspace is simply radioactive, so I never think about those as a way to get a clue on what I might or might not like.

Seriously, most of the new (new in that I don't own it already) music I listen to nowadays is made by people who can barely scrape the nickels together to get recording studio and mixing board time. Label promotions, as we used to know them, are as far away as the moon for them. So I buy their CDs at shows and just rip all the songs.

That's all I was saying about "support your artists," too. Those guys out there running the ragged edge of making a living from music are, to me, where the really good stuff is coming from, and it always has been so. So, I give them 15 bucks and hope they can keep doing it a little longer, and maybe make it to ITMS one day.