Can someone explain the allure of buying music and video with iTunes for me? I was debating this with Matt the other night, and after taking another look at the Music Store and payment info, I still can’t understand why anyone would want to give Apple money to download music. Through laptop speakers, MP3 files sound eerily similar to when you crank the treble and drop the bass on a regular stereo. If you’re using a desktop, better speakers probably help, but that’s not even the point… Eventually, these tunes are transferred onto an iPod, that marvel of modern technology, symbol of a generation, enabler of music at any time in any place…Unless you–for example–want to listen to music in your car, where both iTrip and regular old cassette tape adapters really don’t sound good. Also, those iTrip’s never get a good signal unless you’re driving I-10 through the southwest where there isn’t any radio interference. As for the videos, who wants to watch videos on a screen that’s an inch wide? Is it really that convenient? The transfer rates and video quality when you plug your iPod into an actual television set is crap. And you save what, ten bucks by ordering a season of a show on iTunes versus buying it on DVD? I don’t get it.
When I was hanging with Jason Molina in Chicago, he not only paid for my beer, he slipped me this CD-r that turned out to be an un-mastered, straight-outta-Electrical Audio copy of the new Magnolia Electric Co. album, which he’d labeled The Nashville Moon. Turns out they changed the title to Fading Trails, and I can now (via Secretly Canadian) share the first MP3 with you (it’s mastered now), along with the first MP3 from Mr. Molina’s solo album Let Me Go! Let Me Go! Let Me Go! or as I have affectionately come to call it, “Let Me Go To the Third Power.” I’m clever, no?
Jason Molina – Get Out Get Out Get Out!
Magnolia Electric Co. – Lonesome Valley
“The Best Podcast You Have” has reached episode eight, which is now available for download. I haven’t listened to it, so I don’t really know if I’ve contributed in any way. I sure hope not, for your sake. This just came into my inbox in the last five minutes, so it’s virgin-fresh. Make sure you sign up as a subscriber. To do so, check out Jack’s blog or his Myspace for details.
