Yesterday I purchased my first music from the Windows version of iTunes. Although the download of the 19 meg installation file was pretty slow (even with my broadband connection), I have a feeling I was not the only doing so on the debut day. I had planned on it all being an exploratory session, but I could not resist downloading and (gasp!) paying for a couple of songs (all discussions of past, we'll just leave in the past okay?!).
Overall, it was a good experience. Registration was easy, my handful of searches were all items within their 400,000+ library, and the $1.98 spent (conveniently charged to my credit card) is not going to break my wallet. Also nice - no subscription fees (just a la carte) and no limits on downloads/burns.
I could not help but think if the music industry had been well ahead of the curve on this years ago, they could have kept the filing "sharing" Pandora's box considerable more contained. Sure the Napsters and Gnutellas would have still been out there (and in some form or another probably always will be) -- but if a legal / convenient / inexpensive alternative was already in place I think (perhaps over-optimistically) many people would have thought twice about doing it for free.
The only issue I had with iTunes was the file format. No big surprise that Apple was not going to make it terribly easy for Windows or non-Ipod users. The file format is an AAC audio file and not the more readily accepted MP3 (and certainly not a Windows WMA audio file). The problem is my relatively new MP3 player only accepts MP3s and WMAs. So in order to get around this (in a hopefully "legal" manner) I did the following: burned the songs onto a CD (using the integrated burn function within iTunes) and then using the Windows Media Player copied the songs off the CD and onto my hard drive as WMAs. So a minor hoop to jump through, but not horrible.
So what were my first two purchases? Pavement Cracks (MacQuayle Extended Mix) by Annie Lennox... I am usually not into the "extended mix" but I made an exception since I heard good things from Entertainment Weekly about this one. I was lucky enough to have 3rd row seats to Annie's Bare tour over the summer. She simply has one of the finest voices ever... when I hear one of her best songs "Why" sometimes get goosebumps even BEFORE she starts singing.
Okay, totally guilty pleasure on purchase #2... Bridge Over Troubled Water by Clay Aiken, the Al Gore of the last season's American Idol. I always liked the song, but readily admit to having become quite taken with Clay's gospel choir-backed rendition.
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