iTunes: here’s a great free track, now do what we tell you with it
If you’re a fan of 80s electro-pop, that is, and if you live in the UK, because the iTunes Music Store promotional free ’single of the week’ is different depending on where you live. Annoyingly, if a great track is given away one week in one country, while you can visit any of the iTunes Music Stores aimed at different countries, you can’t download the freebie unless it’s the one offered up to your own nation. You can buy from different stores, though. I presume that’s because of licensing deal issues, and not just another instance of Apple/iTunes being unnecessarily complicated again.
I don’t like buying music from the iTunes Music Store because of DRM – Digital Rights Management. I use iTunes every day for listening to my mp3 collection, which is over 230GB in size and has taken me three years to build up by importing all mine and D’s CDs whenever a spare half-hour could be found. DRM means a track is basically labelled as being purchased by you and only playable, if you buy from iTunes, using iTunes or an iPod. Microsoft, by the way, is no better. That should come as no surprise. Many players will only let you listen to Windows Media Audio (WMA), which is Gates’ stab at a codec which forces you, the listener, to use specific software and devices for your music – Microsoft-approved, of course.
While I have both iTunes and an iPod – I have a Photo iPod, D has my old 3rd generation iPod with a new battery fitted after the original one died – I don’t agree with music being made to fit one piece of software, one music player. The only way round it is to burn any music you purchase from iTunes into an audio CD (as opposed to a data or mp3 CD) and then re-import it. Doing so strips out the DRM crap and lets you listen to your music using any software or device you want. So, buying stuff from iTunes is not exactly convenient for me. I mean, sure, I get to access music that isn’t readily available where I live in the local music shops but, once purchased, converting the music is a tortuous process.
So why do it at all if I use iTunes as my music software of choice and have two iPods in the house? Well, I don’t just use iTunes – I also use a program called Virtual DJ, which is a full-featured mixing deck. It’s really fun to play with, mp3s appearing as records on screen which you place onto ‘turntables’ and then can scratch using the mouse, mix into each other, and do all the things a professional DJ can do with traditional vinyl. The thing is, Virtual DJ is not an authorised player of music downloaded from iTunes – only iTunes and iPod are – and so if I don’t convert the music I buy, it isn’t even ’seen’ by Virtual DJ on the external hard drive which houses my music files. I find it a source of resentment that Apple and the record companies believe it is acceptable to tell us what we can do with our music, what we can play it on, when we pay out money for it. These control issues on the part of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and the music industry make me sick.
Anyway, these gripes about iTunes and iPod are well-established and shared by many but until we get governments willing to take on the virtual monopolies instead of kow-towing to the music companies and technology industry, we’re left with either importing our own CDs, undertaking technically icky conversions of legally downloaded music, or piracy.
Back to referencing 80s electro-pop and the ’single of the week’. If you’re in the UK, get hold of the current offering by a New York-based band called Dangerous Muse. I’d never heard of them before downloading the free track but after hearing it, I bought the other two tracks which make up the entire EP. As an aside, why do they still use the acronym ‘EP’ – extended play – when it’s so unsuited to the era of music being downloaded track-by-track? It’s as anachronistic as ‘LP’ being used to denote an album.
Anyway, the single is called The Rejection and plays like a sexier, huskier, equally sleazy take on Soft Cell. The male vocalist bears comparison to The Beloved and if he comes from the US, there’s no trace of American accent in his voice. He sounds as if he comes from the Southern Counties of England.
As a huge Pet Shop Boys fan, I can tell you the influence of Tennant and Lowe as well as Almond and Ball is immediately apparent on first listen but there is something more which makes the song not just an appropriation of musical sounds from times gone by but something genuinely different in these days of the charts being awash with boring R&B, MOR rock and deadly serious solo artists. I am sick of songs about killing girlfriends, videos of big-boobed women shaking their backsides at the camera dressed in bikinis, long-haired 60s throwbacks trying to sound ‘real’ while awash with the overproduction characteristic of today’s sterile, controlled ‘music product’ output. It’s hard to put your finger on what makes this more than just a retro track by a retro band. There’s a bounce, a liveliness which is at odds with the idea of purely electronic music. I like it and can’t stop playing it. It doesn’t just ape the 80s; it’s something different, something more. Check it out if you can get hold of it.
4 comments on “iTunes: here’s a great free track, now do what we tell you with it”
March 5th, 2006 at 10:48 am
That sounds like my kind of band. I did a quick search, and wasn’t able to find anything about them.
I agree with you about iTunes. I’m using Beatport.com for my dance music purchases. No DRM. You can even get lossless audio. It’s a beautiful thing.
Of course, if you like free, I give away free electronic music MP3s all the time. Check Knobtweakers.net. =)
March 5th, 2006 at 10:58 am
Haha! You win the award for best online nickname I’ve seen in a while. Thanks for the comment and welcome to my site! I will definitely visit yours and check it out. Yeah, it’s funny isn’t it? The reviews on iTunes show the song is really making an impression on people. I hope they haven’t slipped into obscurity before having had the chance to impact against today’s overall dross. x
March 5th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
You must be from the UK. I was drawn here by this post about music, but I’ll certainly check out the archives, and read some of the poetry. I like the design, and the tone of your writing. =)
March 6th, 2006 at 8:39 am
I am, yes! And you? It’s great to have you here and I hope you find plenty of interesting stuff to read and ponder over! x
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