I’ve always had an issue buying mp3s. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to buy more of them if they came cheaper. Sometimes I get in the mind set of why aren’t they cheaper? There’s no production cost like CDs. Then I remember about servers and internet fees and crap like that. Then I get disheartened because they don’t come cheaper, are at a worse quality than the CD and don’t come with the satisfying tearing into that you get with a CD.

However, I tend to buy the CD, make mp3s of it and store the CD away in some nice place and never look at it again. My mp3s are twice the quality you get from the iTunes music store, and if something goes wrong, I have the CD to fall back to.

I bring all of this up because recently I actually bought something from iTunes (instead of browsing and then seraching for a torrent). iTunes is doing a good job of creating exclusive tracks to pump up business I think. That’s what suckered me into it atleast. But until they allow me to get them at a higher quality, I won’t buy regularly.

Oh, I should point out by the way that in Japan, video stores also have a pretty good selection of CDs you can rent for $1. I’d much rather rent the thing for $1 and make nicer mp3s plus get all the great bonus tracks they throw on CDs here. But they don’t have Mike Doughty, so I’ll buy that. Yeah. That’s all.

Brian Schuch