Why do the music services vary in selection?
by Kevin Dangoor
This is an oddity. Napster and Walmart both have Nickelback songs online, including their current “Someday”. Walmart also has Linkin Park songs, but not “Numb” (or anything else from Meteora). Since it appears that Linkin Park has agreed to single song downloads, why don’t Napster and Walmart have everything by them? Is it because they want to sell as many traditional CDs as they can before releasing for single-song downloads?
And, if Napster and Walmart both have Nickelback and Linkin Park, why doesn’t iTunes have either one? Apple has deals with all five major labels and is far and away the current leader in the music downloading biz. Why wouldn’t you find those songs on the leading service?
Slightly off the point, but I didn’t care for Meteora. More like Mediocre. Hybrid Theory was pretty good, but Meteora felt more like all the B sides to HT, more of the same but only half as good. And the more I listen the more I think that Chester has some seriuous issues. Maybe his songs are his way of release, but it gets mighty depressing for me to listen to. LP has a lot of potential – I hope they reach it next time around.
That’s funny. When I saw this comment in email, I thought you were replying to my Favorite Songs of 2003 post, where this comment would have been perfectly on topic.
I haven’t heard Meteora, and these days I’ve really only been getting music from iTMS (which doesn’t have Meteora). “Numb” reminds me of “In the End” quite a bit, but I really like both of the songs and can relate to the lyrics of “Numb”. If both albums are filled with songs like that, it would seem that the band is down in the dumps.
But, you know something? It’s hard to write happy pop music and be taken seriously. It’s always bothered me that the Oscars favor depressing movies, but that’s what it takes to get respect among critics. I have no idea if that’s what Linkin Park are after.
Listening to a whole album of stuff like “Numb” would make me want to queue up Barenaked Ladies or maybe even Weird Al.
I’m not suggesting everything should be happy, but for goodness sakes, two full albums of the most angst-ridden and depressing music is too much to take. Even directors/actors who are frequently doing depressing movies do something else once in a while. Yeah, Weird Al sure can help put things in perspective, can’t he? Does iTMS carry his stuff?
To get back a little on track, the various music services are doing some serious negotiations with the record companies and trying to get exclusivity with certain ones. Also, I bet some of them are buying single songs when they have to, especially for top 10-20 songs and they know they’ll lose business if they don’t. I think it’s a strange deal and most likely there’s going to be an explosion of services then a bunch of mergers later this year or next. Everythings new right now and exploring what works and what doesn’t.
BTW, I hope Napster dies an agonizing death. I have to give them some credit for some early ideas, but their current incarnation is lame. I’ve also heard that iTunes quality isn’t anything to write home about, but most others are following suit. If I’m going to pay for a service then I want full CD quality. Know of any that are full quality?
All of the services, as far as I know, use lossy compression of one flavor or another. iTMS sells 128kbit AAC files, which are of decent quality to my ears. I rip my CDs into 160kb MP3s, and I think the AAC files I’ve bought have been on par with my MP3 files.
I would doubt that most people would really notice the difference between the files from the various services.
Here’s a thought: buy a couple Pepsis in February, and you’ll likely get a free iTunes song. Give it a whirl for free then and see how it sounds