2001-05-29 - 11:58 p.m.

Lost In The Music

As I said in the last entry, yesterday Lily set up my computer to be a little MP3 factory, and in the last day what I have been mainly doing is adding to the list of downloaded songs on my computer. Right now I have over 200 MP3s, mainly downloaded. Basically my aim is to have my top 200 songs on the playlist, and so far I think I have about a third of them.

This is my first time playing with something like this, and I've leaned some things while I have been compiling my list of songs.

First of all, people can't spell! I'm seeing more variant spellings of even simple words than I could ever imagine. People have problems with getting the right titles on songs, too. They even have a hard time figuring out what songs go with what artists. For example, when I was browsing through songs by Simon and Garfunkel I found a song called "Why I Hit That Bitch." Somehow I think a song by someone else got mixed in.

Now these music sharing services have been in the news a lot recently because of supposed copyright violations. This is what has practically shut down Napster.

I'm of two minds on the subject. While I think that creative people should be rewarded for their labors, I really hate the record companies. They seem to be in the business of screwing their artists as well as gouging the American public. Anything that kicks them in the jewels is sure to bring a smile to my face.

However, all the songs I have downloaded are, with one exception, songs that I already have bought and paid for on one CD or another. Downloading them onto my computer just makes them easier to listen to. Well, that's all well and good, so I am not really violating any copyright, any more than when I record a tape to listen to in my car.

However, by using the service I am allowing OTHER people to get music they have not bought. Oh well.

Let's see what someone is leeching off me right now. Hmmmm. "Hurting Each Other" by the Carpenters. Okay...

Actually another way that I am planning on using this service is to audition albums that I am thinking of buying. Every so often I will buy a new album by an artist I know, or experiment with an artist that looks interesting. Sometimes I get a pleasant surprise and find something I really like. However more often I find that I have paid $15 or more for one song, or for an album that I will only listen to once.

Auditioning CDs over the internet will give me a chance to avoid these music buying mistakes. Although knowing me it will cause me to buy more CDs than before because I will be exposed to more new music. Well, actually I wouldn't mind that too much.

Speaking of copyright, as I was surfing through various artists there were only two artists whose songs were listed as "not available due to copyright restrictions." They were: Steely Dan and Celine Dion. Talk about an odd pairing! I can understand Steely Dan being cranky about their music (they're cranky about EVERYTHING), but Celine Dion?

However, the joke is on them: apparently Audiogalaxy only recognizes the copyright protection on MP3s where the song name is SPELLED CORRECTLY. This makes it easy to do an end run around this flimsy prohibition.

I really think that using Winamp and listening to songs on my computer is going to change the way I think about music and the songs I loke. Already I'm discovering that there are some songs I thought were my favorites that don't really hold up under repeated listenings, and other sings that I'm enjoying more than I thought I did.

And that's another one I owe Lily.