The end and beginning of an era...

(I know I blew it this Monday, but better late than never!)

I remember when I was in middle and high school I would spend hours perusing the music stores in the mall, buying CD after CD, some even just on a whim. As the industry changed, the music chains faded off into the retail distance and gave way to bigger multi-entertainment stores like Best Buy, Circuit City (RIP), Borders, and Barnes and Noble.

But today I finally took the quantum leap into the digital age by making my first strictly-online digital music purchases. I had been bucking the trend for a while now and I know I'm behind the curve on this one, but it felt like it was time today, for whatever reason. It is the dawning of a new age for me.

I decided to use Amazon MP3 because their music is DRM-free (meaning you can do whatever you want with the file--burn, copy, whatever) and also you can download singles without having to install any other application. You need their downloader program for full albums (which I eventually installed), but it is very small, straightforward and unobtrusive.

Here were my first digital purchases:

*Hot N Cold - Katy Perry (something about the song made me feel good the other day, I don't know what...)
*Gives You Hell - All-American Rejects (catchy number, well-produced)
*Boyz II Men - II (full album--only $1.99!)
*Also downloaded some free giveaway tracks including a Stax sampler and free tunes by Sepultura and Ani Difranco.

So, not really any deep choices there, just a couple of current pop/rock singles and a Boyz II Men album that I always get nostalgic about and couldn't pass up for the price, but I think that's going to be the gist of my initial MO with this digital thing. Usually if I'm really into an artist and/or an album I would rather purchase the physical tangible CD to have, so I forecast that for now I will use digital shopping just for one-off purchases, at least until CDs go the way of the 8-track tape.

Here's a really good site that compares all of the biggest digital music sites out there:

http://music-download-review.toptenreviews.com/

See you at the online record store...