I hate iTunes music store…

because they’re going to end up with all of my money. Okay, to date, I’ve spent only about $30USD, but the fact that I’ve spent any money at all is a testament to the draw of iTMS.

For the most part, music I’m looking for is there. There are a few big examples of absent artists (the Beatles for instance), but it changes every day. Also, you gotta love the fact that you can audition a track before you buy it. And, at $0.99 per track, it’s sooo within the impulse buy range.

At first, I thought that this type of buying would severly limit my musical breadth, but there are a few things that mitigate the narrowness. First of all, the search feature tends to be “greedy” in its matching. That is, things that aren’t exactly what you were looking for appear, and I tend to investigate those results further. For the most part, I’m not interested, but every once in a while, I find something I normally wouldn’t have sought out and like. Also, these other results tend to remind me of other things I was looking for. I’m one of those people who knows exactly what music he’s looking for… until I step foot in the music store. Then my mind draws a blank. This happens in the video store as well and results in a complete sweep of the recent releases.

But I digress. The other factor that mitigates tunnel vision when purchasing music is the fact that you can audition all the tracks on an album. I used to go by the maxim of, “if there are 2 good tracks from one album, consider buying it”. I no longer need to worry about this any more. I can audition all the tracks, and if I only like one, I buy it.

So, if you haven’t yet discovered iTunes, by no means should you click this link and download iTunes. And by no means should you enter your credit card info. You have been warned.

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