FEBRUARY 22nd - Yay iTunes. Buy an Album.



On this day in 2006, Alex Ostrovsky from West Bloomfield, Michigan downloaded “Speed of Sound” by Coldplay. Not a big deal, even for you people who won’t admit that Coldplay is a damn good band, except for that Alex happened to download the one billionth song from iTunes. The lucky little purchase earned him a $10,000 iTunes card, a new 20 inch Mac, and 10 60gig iPods. That’s a hell of a haul. Especially when you think of how far digital music has come. I remember waiting hours on end for the old dial-up connection to download the latest song I wanted. Tied up the phone line the whole time. And you were never sure of the sound or quality. Napster. WinMX. Kazaa. It was the dawn of a new musical age. iTunes legitimized the whole thing--thankfully for the artist's sake. Downloading has morphed into streaming services. Pandora. Spotify. Even iTunes. Music is at your fingertips like never before. And that is a good thing. But the art of the album has been lost. Can you imagine The Who trying to come out with Tommy or Quadrophenia in the current musical climate? No one would get the story. But more than that. I fear that gems get lost. You can still buy albums on iTunes or through other digital avenues, but people usually just want the hit song. Listeners miss out when that is the case. Some of my favorite songs are buried on albums. Those are the ones that are fun to find. Songs that speak to you. They aren’t forced on you by radio or consistent overplay. You found them. They popped out to you for some reason. So while I appreciate how prevalent and accessible music has become, I urge you buy an album every now and again. You probably won’t get a $10K gift card, 10 iPads, and a new computer, but you might just find a new favorite song. And isn’t that better? No. Probably not. But it is something.

(In case you were wondering iTunes has sold more than 25 billion songs to date).

This Day has been Marked.

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