Tag: Zune

A Zune Christmas

My wife got me a blue 8gb Zune for Christmas and I’ve been spending this morning downloading albums to play on it.  I bought the Zune Pass which lets me have access to almost everything for $14.99 a month.  I’m used to subscription music because I’ve been a Rhapsody subscriber for years, but I never had a compatible player.  iPods don’t work with subscription music services.  I was intrigued by Zune when I read the new 3.0 version allowed subscribers to keep 10 songs a month as part of their monthly fee.  The ten free songs a month aren’t DRM-free MP3 songs though, but Zune locked songs, although they promise these songs will play even after I stop paying the rent.  Well, we know how that works, don’t we.  Still it’s a nice try.

So far I’ve downloaded:

  • Quicksilver Messenger Service
  • Quicksilver Messenger Service – Happy Trails
  • Pavement – Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Ed.
  • R.E.M. – Murmur – Deluxe
  • Genesis – Foxtrot (new reissue)
  • Joan Baez – Day After Tomorrow
  • David Bowie – Live in Santa Monica 1972
  • Arcade Fire – Funeral
  • Nirvana – Nevermind
  • The Priests

I considered getting the new box set of the complete Creedence Clearwater Revival albums, but figured I’d save that for later.  I wish they had a check box for “Add to Memory Queue” for these subscription services.  All-you-can-listen-to musical gluttony is hard to manage.

I’ve found a great way to pick new albums to load – I go to The Rolling Stone CD Album Review page and look for 4 and 5 star reviews.  This is a fantastic way to discover new albums, and to rediscover old albums and box sets when they are re-released.

Even if I only listened to one new album a day, $300 a month value at $10 an album, the $15 a month fee still makes me feel like I’m robbing them blind.  Nothing is stopping me from listening to 10 new albums a day.  It’s all legal and on the up-and-up.  And I think it’s a fair price.  For most albums, I will only listen to them once.  I doubt that I will find 10 perfect songs a month that I will want to play over and over again enough to make them worth the trouble to isolate from the rental songs.  As long as I pay the monthly rental fee I’ll have access to them as long as they don’t go out of print.

I think a fun project would be to find 1,000 perfect songs.  A perfect song to me are ones I would listen to over and over again without getting bored.  It would be fun to have 1,000 perfect songs on the Zune and hit random play.

The Zune works with Wi-Fi and I can call up albums directly from the player, but I find it easier to just load them from my Zune library on the PC.  I haven’t figured out how to delete albums yet.  And there are rare delays in playing music through Wi-Fi that I avoid by downloading the album through the computer.  The Wi-Fi feature will be great for when I’m away from home.

The Zune now supports Audible.com files and Overdrive library files, so I can use the Zune as a replacement for my iPod Nano that I use for listening to audio books.  The players are about the same size and weight.  I haven’t checked how well the Zune plays audio books, and whether or not it has a good resume feature, vital for listening to audio books.  Overall, I’m very impressed with the Zune.

The earphones that come with the Zune seem nice enough, but I’ve read they aren’t as good as they could be, so I’ll start looking for reviews on some low-cost great bang-for-buck earphones.  I find the Zune earphones better than the ones that came with my iPod.  They are more comfortable and sound better.  I’ve never acquired the habit of listening to music through earphones though, and that will determine how how I use my Zune, but I like it very much right now.

JWH 12/26/8

Out of Print – The Bad Side of Digital

There is a downside to digital music, especially if you’ve moved completely to digital downloads and have given up on CDs and LPs and want to be completely legal.  Most albums only stay in print for a certain period of time.  Famous records from artists like The Beatles, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones tend to stay in print forever, but not so for the work of most performers.  If you love a less famous band, say Quicksilver Messenger Service, most of their albums are out of print.

I would love to hear three QMS albums again, Shady Grove, Just For Love and What About Me on my Zune or iPod.  They aren’t available from Zune Marketplace.  Nor can I buy them from Amazon on MP3.  Nor are they for sale at iTunes.  I can get them from Amazon as Japanese import CDs for $15 each.  Or  I could track down the original LPs on eBay for less and then convert the tracks to digital.  Just when I thought I had left the physical world of LPs and CDs, I’m dragged back in.

What this means:  If you REALLY love an album buy a physical copy.  Rip it, make backups, and store away the original for safe keeping.  You never know thirty years from now when the nostalgic mood hits you and you’ll moan pitifully, “I’d give a hundred bucks to hear that album again.”  Otherwise, Zen up, accept the fleeting quality of this world, and stop trying to clutch desperately to the past.

You’d think with digital record stores everything that was ever recorded would be for sale, but for legal reasons that’s not true.  Like I said, if you’re criminally minded, just steal what you want off the net.  iTunes, Rhapsody and Zune Marketplace should have everything because production costs shouldn’t be an issue.  If the pirates can offer everything from free, why should the legal dudes have any trouble providing it for money?

I could wait and maybe Shady Grove, Just for Love and What About Me will be legally reprinted in the Zune Marketplace and Rhapsody libraries.  But what if the contract is only for five years, and I want to hear those albums again when I’m 88?  That’s the problem with subscription music – it’s ephemeral.

Why even have a publication period for an album in this digital age?  Why can’t artists just sign up with publishers and have their work always in print and constantly available?  That might happen in the future, but I can’t trust it now.

Nothing is for sure.  I could buy those three Japanese imports and twenty-five years from now CD players could be as rare as turntables that play 78 rpm records.  There might be technological reasons that put music out of print too.  Owning a MP3 file, free of digital rights management, might have a longer useful life span than a physical album, but only if you backup like a compulsive fiend.

But this is also sadly funny.  I just got a new Zune, I have access to hundreds of thousands of albums I’ve never heard, more than can fit in any record store I’ve ever visited and I’m crying over three albums that probably, if I had them, I’d only play once because there’s a reason they are out of print.  Why don’t I make an effort to discover new albums to love rather than whining about old forgotten albums?

Over the years I’ve owned thousands of albums, many of which I can’t even remember, but every once in awhile will pop back into my mind and I’ll wish I had them to play again.  I guess that’s human nature.

JWH – 12/25/8