King  Gary 

I hate CDs. I hate copy protection software. I hate being forced to purchase an entire album of songs from an artist when I only like one of their songs. That’s the great thing about how things are now. I can finally buy just one song, such as from iTunes. I don’t even want to imagine how much money I’ve spent in total at the iTunes Music Store, as it becomes much more addicting when: 1) You can just click one button to buy a single song, and 2) Each purchase is only $0.99 CAD (but it really adds up quickly). This is indeed a great, “new” (since April 2003) way to sell music. Some say that artists don’t make as much money because only one song is purchased instead of the usual album, but in my case, I’ve spent a lot of money purchasing new albums of new artists that I would never have purchased if I never listened to at least one of their songs in its entirety, first.

Some examples of artists whom I’ve purchased albums from:

• Keane
• The Raconteurs
• The Futureheads
• Of Montreal
• The Strokes
• The Mars Volta

Bands that I love, but would never have discovered without first listening to one of their songs completely, first:

• Death Cab for Cutie
• The Postal Service
• Stars
• Joshua Radin

I’ve probably spent hundreds of dollars on music over the last few years now, but on music that I more thoroughly enjoy because they really appeal to me, rather than mainstream music that plays on the local radio every day. My music library is also much more diverse, and so I get a much wider breadth of genre and styles of music. I have, on average, 1.5 songs for every artist, so I definitely have a lot artists with only one song in my library. I love it like that, and wouldn’t have it any other way.

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