Rihanna assault photo post -- No class

Just wanted to speak my mind on a current issue...

I don't know if you all have kept up with the Rihanna/Chris Brown assault scandal, but recently there has been a photo circulating online taken of Rihanna that shows her battered and bruised face after the assault. Apparently the photo was leaked by the LAPD, perhaps by someone looking to make some easy money by selling it to the media. Today I saw the photo for the first time posted under the 'Featured' section on the front page of MySpace, and I feel it was done in incredibly poor taste, whether the photo is genuine or not.

I think it shows ABSOLUTELY NO CLASS for any website to post a photo of this nature, which if genuine was supposed to be confidential and was released without authorization. This is especially true for a site like MySpace, where younger folks will be exposed to it. Sites like Daily Fill, MySpace, TMZ, et al. should really have more respect for common decency than that. Hats off to the LAPD for seriously investigating the leak.

There's just no good reason for this exploitation. All to get more hits to your site? Come on. What if that was your daughter/sister/friend? Let's have some integrity, people.

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...