I decided to buy some more songs yesterday so I went back to iTunes (see first entry).
I recently bought four Led Zeppelin CD’s through Columbia House because they had a Buy 1 Get 3 Free offer. At the music store one CD was $17 and the box set was something like $90 for all their music. But by buying this one album plus shipping and taxes I wound up getting 4 albums for $32 (which gave me enough bonus points for another free album). Otherwise I’d have never bought Led Zep 3, but you really do need 1 and 2 and Houses of the Holy is probably my favorite (already had IV).
Anyway, the thing about it is that all of these CD’s only had 8-10 songs on them. So by buying individual songs through iTunes you’d only pay $8 on some of these and $10 is the max for single CD’s anyway. Take off some of the songs that aren’t that good and buying albums is cheap!
So that brought me back to iTunes. But it really takes some work. I probably spent at least an hour picking out 12 songs. First I want to make sure I don’t get some kind of re-mix. Then I want to make sure I get a well-produced version instead of some re-re-recorded blur. Then you have to make sure you get the right version. One song was Ray Charles’ Night Time is the Right Time. Well, Ray’s been around long enough to record that 10 different ways from Sunday probably, but I wanted the good version with great baaaaaaaby backup singing. It’s hard to tell that even if you play the 30 second snippet you’re allowed. Turns out I got the right one.
But on Bob Marley’s Kaya I got the totally wrong version because even though I checked on allmusic.com what was his best album with that song, it was an early version, not the slicker one he made later on. Allmusic probably liked the rawer version, but I like the more commercial one that I presume he did later. As it turned out if I had listened to the 30-second snippet I would have been able to tell right away so I just didn’t run through the whole process (though the 30-second snippets are a pain on dial-up). $1 down the drain but at least I now feel fully entitled to the version I acquired on my own that I like.
I really blew it on Trio’s Da-Da-Da. First, it turns out I already had the song on a compilation CD I had bought and that’s why I never downloaded the song in the first place. I had just never converted it to MP3 and forgot I had the real thing. Second, they had a 6:30 version and 3:30 version. Both are 99 cents so you go for the longer one, right? Stupid. The song consists of the words “you,” “don’t”, “love”, “me”, “I”, and “Da”. And “Da” isn’t even a word. You just don’t need six and a half minutes of that. Worse still, my compilation CD has the long version, so I just have that one twice. And that was one of the only reasons I bought the stupid compilation CD in the first place.
All sales are final, so even though I hadn’t finished downloading the extended dance version of Da Da Da, it was too late.
I can chalk this up to experience. Even though I spent an hour picking the songs, I should have taken longer. Really part of the entertainment value of the whole process is browsing around and finding stuff out. For $12 I still got 10 really good songs and that’s better than you would do buying most CD’s.
I’ll do it a few more times I think. One I’m thinking about is the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack which only seems to have four or so really good songs.
I have been on a Led Zeppelin kick too, stemming from the fact that Danny got Physical Graffiti and IV for Christmas. I have downloaded both of them onto my computer. I also really really really enjoy the song “The Way It Is” which is on the Almost Famous soundtrack, a great compilation you should check out.
…According to Danny, those two Zeppelin records are the only records made that are good from start to finish.
On a side note, I believe that you have access to the Almost Famous soundtrack, Uncle Ted, which I suggest you download if you don’t already have it.
There were actually two songs from LZ3 that were in Almost Famous: Tangerine and That’s the Way (and about all that album is good for). I bought Tiny Dancer in this second round. I will need to listen to the rest of the Almost Famous soundtrack to see what else I need.
I also need to borrow Physical Grafitti since I don’t have that one.
Somebody on Amazon wrote in a list of all the songs from Almost Famous:
1. America – Simon and Garfunkel
2. Sparks – The Who
3. It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference – Todd Rundgren
4. I’ve Seen All Good People: Your Move – Yes
5. Feel Flows – The Beach Boys
6. Fever Dog – Stillwater
7. Every Picture Tells A Story – Rod Stewart
8. Mr. Farmer – The Seeds
9. One Way Out – The Allman Borthers Band
10. Simple Man – Lynyrd Skynyrd
11. That’s The Way – Led Zeppelin
12. Tiny Dancer – Elton John
13. Lucky Trumble – Nancy Wilson
14. I’m Waiting For The Man – David Bowie
15. The Wind – Cat Stevens
16. Slip Away – Clarence Carter
17. Something In The Air – Thunderclap Newman
18. Teacher – Jethro Tull
19. Mona Lisa’s and Mad Hatters – Elton John
20. Tangerine – Led Zeppelin
21. Search and Destroy – Iggy Pop
22. Sweet Leaf – Black Sabbath
23. Go All the Way – Eric Carmen & The Raspberries
24. Misty Mountain Hop – Led Zeppelin
25. The Chipmunk Song – The Chipmunks
26. Roundabout – Yes
27. Bron-yr-aur – Led Zeppelin
28. Small Time Blues – Pete Droge
29. Hour of Need – Stillwater
30. Paranoid – Black Sabbath
31. The Rain Song – Led Zeppelin
32. Everbody knows this is nowhere – Neil Young
33. Future Games – Fleetwood Mac
34. Albert Flasher – Guess Who
35. Love Thing – Stillwater
36. Burn – Deep Purple
37. You had to be there – Stillwater
38. Reeling in the Years – Steely Dan
39. Dear Jill – Bloodwyn Pig
40. Love comes and goes – Stillwater
41. Voodoo Child – Jimi Hendrix
42. Slip away – Clarance Carter
43. Wishing well – Free
44. My Cherie Amour – Stevie Wonder
45. Looking at you – MCS
46. Cortez the Killer – Neil Young
47. The Oogum Boogum Song – Brenton Wood
48. River – Joni Mitchell
49. Easy to slip – Little Feat
50. Peggy Sue
51. Cover of the Rolling Stone
52. Colour my World
Nicole inspired me to try the blue mac FTP again. My old version of WS-FTP wasn’t recognizing file names longer than 8 letters or with spaces in them so that was messing me up. So I went to download.com and got SmartFTP. It blows away WS-FTP and is the same low price.
Anyway, your version of I’ve Got You Babe is *not* Sonny and Cher.
1. I was laughing very loud reading this posting. I think this is what web logs are all about… sharing experiences in life with a sense of humor. I cracked up at: “the song consists of the words “you,” “don’t”, “love”, “me”, “I”, and “Da”. And “Da” isn’t even a word. You just don’t need six and a half minutes of that. ”
Tip: You can pseudo truncate the play back time (front and/or back) on any song in iTunes. For example, I have cut out the entire preamble of “Long Live God” from Godspell. I just want the joyous part to play back, not the painful part. (I have the DVD for that)… available soon at mac.fiveforks.com/movie. 🙂
2. We make mistakes buying music. iTunes helps in that the mistake is narrowed down to $1. I accidentally bought Alan Parson’s Greatest Hits 2 from Amazon. It’s awful because I only like the old stuff. I have no idea how I did it. I thought I was ordering Tales of Mystery & Imagination (based on The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe.)
My dead friend, Brother Bill Powell, accidentally ordered Hootie & The Blowfish twice. He hated Hootie. As he handed me the second mistaken order, he sighed, “Ah… now I’m Hootieless.” I’ve since slipped Hootie into Ted an Nancy Regan’s CD collection without them knowing.
Way, way back in high school, I accidentally ordered Robin Trower’s In City Dreams (vinyl) instead of ZZ Top’s Fandango from Columbia House. I wrote down the wrong code. Turns out it is a GREAT album, so that was a good mistake. I would later see Robin Trower with Kevin Cartmill in a small bar on Memorial Highway. It was so small, we brought ear plugs, which was a good thing because Robin brought some speakers that filled a fifth of the bar.
3. Thank you Nicole for reminding Uncle Ted to check out the mac.fiveforks music library first before purchase. Friends, family, and fair-use all start with the letter “F”.
4. We also own the Almost Famous soundtrack, but it only has 17 songs, not 52. I just got it properly sorted under /music/compilations. Listening to “The Wind” by Cat Stevens got me into a download frenzy on Cat. I bought his greatest hits on vinyl, so I applied my vinyl license to my Limewire downloads. This is my “media-change” fair-use policy which includes vinyl but not 8-track. Anyone buying 8-track doesn’t deserve a lifetime license.
5. Not sure I understand why you need FTP when you can just browse using the /music directory. Maybe it is more efficient with dial up.
About Sonny & Cher… the directories limewire/shared and limewire/incomplete are not actually part of the iTunes library. They are default folders for Limewire. I put them there because when first played, a song outside of the iTunes library will be copied in. I didn’t want these songs to be copied, but moved. By putting these folders within the iTunes library directory, a newly played song gets moved vs. copied. These are songs we have downloaded but not bothered playing! We use Limewire very little now, although it has all paid off for Tom Waits. (Just ripped Frank’s Wild Years… legally acquired by Nicole for her Dad.)
Bruthu J: That is very funny about the HOotie mistake. Hootieless is the way to go.
Search and Destroy by Iggy Pop is a great song. So is Nightclubbing. You might like the soundtrack to a movie called “Trainspotting,” UT AND Dad, it contains a lot of dance-y new wave 80s/70s glam music (including the song Nightclubbing, and one of my favorites by New Order called Temptation). You may be able to preview the tracks on the i-tunes store. I don’t have it but my roommates do and I’ve heard it several times. Really good.
I haven’t really looked into the i-tunes store yet, since I don’t have a means to purchase songs.
Bruthu J: You got a vinyl player??