Some of these places just drive me mad. Earlier this year I got loads of free credit from Mycokemusic, the music download site. As a rule, I hate downloads. You’re effectively leasing rather than owning the music and with DRM it’s just a total pain.
However I accrued a bit of virtual money and got a couple of downloads – why not? Today I pick up last weekend’s Observer Music Magazine and fancy listening to Rapture Riders, the mix of Blondie’s Rapture and The Doors’ Riders on the Storm. A good way to use my credit surely?
Nope.
The site does list the single, and the four tracks on it. I can even listen to a thirty second clip of each track on the CD single. But I can neither stream nor download the full track! So why’s it even there? A complete waste of time.
No doubt it’s very downloadable from iTunes, but I’ve not got an iPod so would lose fidelity by burning it onto CD and then re-ripping it, and in any case I’ve got credit with another site. This isn’t even an obscure title (Mycokemusic’s pretty terrible about anything that’s not in the top 40 – basically you can forget it. Consequently, I haven’t exactly been burning through my credit.).
And the music industry wants to know whay it’s doing wrong? It can’t even get a major player like Coke’s site fully working. I don’t know who’s problem this really is, but I don’t care. All I know is that I can’t download the music I want. I know of another way to get it, but the artists and performers don’t get paid if I go down that route.
Useless.