rob was here.

I think you will find, when death takes it's toll,
all the money you made will never buy back your soul.

Today marks a strange occassion, I legally bought my first piece of online music. I did so through the iTunes music store. I'm going to do this from now on, particularly for the artists which I listen to regularly (modest mouse, pearl jam, floyd, etc).. Why? Not because I feel guilty (i don't) or that I think that buying media is the ethically noble thing to do (that doesn't concern me either, really).. I bought it because it's affordable and it's damn easy to do. I basically was looking through my music library in iTunes while listening to a Pearl Jam cover of Bob Dylan's Masters of War. I really, really like the song and I suddenly realized "hey!... I don't own the original. I wish I had it."

My eyes slided over to the 'iTunes Music Store' label. It asked if I wanted to create an account, and I did (with minimal information.. name, credit card info, address)..

I logged in and typed "Masters of War" into an available search field.. It listed an impressive list of multiple dylan versions and a few pearl jam covers. I click on the top rated dylan version and click "buy". It automatically downloaded to my iTunes library and I was listening to it in less than 2 minutes. It even downloads the album cover to iTunes (see picture below).. Might I add that it's top notch quality. 99 cents that I don't regret spending.

The only concern I have is the type of mp3 encoding apple uses.. it's a funny .m4p file encoding, which will work on iPods and the like, but i'm pretty sure it wont work on older 3rd party mp3 players and even in some software media players. You can re-encode it i assume, but thats a hassle really.

At any rate, it was a painless and easy experience. It was sort of an experiment for me to see what it's all about, and I imagine i'll be coming back for more songs now and then.

I'll follow your casket on a pale afternoon.
I'll watch while your lowered into your death bed.
And i'll stand o'er your grave till I'm sure that you're dead.
--Dylan

My first online purchasing experience.