One of the powerful ideas I’m pursuing in my book is the notion of a universal jukebox for movies, music, television and other media.
In some sense, it’s what Netflix aspires to as a legitimate movie rental service. It’s what Napster came close to achieving, and what clones like Kazaa strive for. And it’s a path the iTunes Music Store clearly wants to take.
While I’m in agreement with the glowing reviews Apple has received for its service, my experience has been a less satisfactory one. I’m fairly sure this is due to lack of licensing agreements with smaller labels, but I’ve been disappointed in the offerings in the iTunes Store when I search out obscure, exotic or foreign titles.
My routine, I’ll admit, is fairly unorthodox. I subscribe to MusicMatch, and often come upon off-the-beaten-track titles in categories like World music. When I hear a song I like, I jot the song title or band’s name down. Then I wander over to the iTunes Store to buy it.
My success rate today was about 10 percent. True, these artists will never pull Britney-type numbers, but shouldn’t an online store provide a selection that’s both deep and wide?
Someone ought to make up a game with the oddball alternative spellings Apple comes up with. Search for Chico Cesar and Apple will ask, “Did you mean Choice Clear?” Search for Maui Morning and it asks, “Maxi Fortang?” A search for Yves Deruyter elicited this: “Ives Drummer?” Dissidenten yielded “Dissident?”
No returns at all for Juno Reactor, King Chango, Drakinbald, Ruisort, Peatbog Faeries, Boy Ge Mendes or Sasha.
So, my options appears to be limited: trek down to the record store and hope Tower carries some of the bands’ CDs (not entirely likely), search for them at an online store (again, be forced to buy the entire CD), or try my luck on a file-sharing service.
I keep hoping they’ll build that universal jukebox soon.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
hi jd,
have you tried EMusic.com? it's my favorite musical diamond in the rough on the net; lots of off-the-beaten-track titles and back catalogs, including a bunch of World stuff. EMusic sez they've got some 250,000+ tracks from nearly 1000 independent labels on-line — all for a flat fee of $10 a month with NO DRM bunkum — in high quality VBR encoded mp3s. i'm downloading around 2000 tracks a month (~200 cds) from EMusic. with such freedom and ability, EMusic has become a virtual radio station for me and the “vein” from which i “mine” most of my New Music these days. lot's of undiscovered/unheard of gems there, if you're willing to spend the time to “pan”, er, “dig” around for 'em.
with kind prague regards,
geoff
hi jd,
have you tried EMusic.com? it’s my favorite musical diamond in the rough on the net; lots of off-the-beaten-track titles and back catalogs, including a bunch of World stuff. EMusic sez they’ve got some 250,000+ tracks from nearly 1000 independent labels on-line — all for a flat fee of $10 a month with NO DRM bunkum — in high quality VBR encoded mp3s. i’m downloading around 2000 tracks a month (~200 cds) from EMusic. with such freedom and ability, EMusic has become a virtual radio station for me and the “vein” from which i “mine” most of my New Music these days. lot’s of undiscovered/unheard of gems there, if you’re willing to spend the time to “pan”, er, “dig” around for ’em.
with kind prague regards,
geoff
I’ve heard good things about EMusic. Maybe I’ll sign up this week. Thanks…
FWIW, I tried emusic and found their catalog wanting (the other aspects were ok — especially no extra charge for burning). But maybe they have what you’re looking for.