The Bright Side of Filesharing
or Brief RIAA Rant
It's not often that I buy an album from a band that I'm not very familiar with. I've heard of Travis before, but aside from the two radio friendly singles "Sing" and "Side," I had little idea what to expect from them. I kept seeing two copies of their "12 Memories" album at the used music store down the street, so after some preliminary research online, I downloaded a low-quality copy of the album to find out what it was like.
Holy crap.
The next day, Sarah and I went back there and I bought the album and their most popular release "The Man Who." Even though technically the band doesn't see a penny of the money I spent to buy the album, they can bet that I'll be purchasing their next release on the same day that it hits shelves. I can't even list how many artists I've found this way - use a torrent site to find an album that fans recommend, listen to it a few times, and then decide to either buy the album or not (and then deleting the album I downloaded either way). Suck on that, RIAA. I admit that there probably aren't many people who are as honest about downloading as I am. But let's face it: people don't want to buy albums when they have no idea what they're buying. Bands that put some of their songs on MySpace or media players embedded in their websites help, but this idea is still catching on pretty slowly. They should give us some more alternatives before they start attacking the torrents.
But back to the music. You should be excited about Travis, and I think you will be after you listen to "Happy to Hang Around." The boys also have an extensive b-side catalog, some of which is available through 7digital.com and other online music catalogs.
Get on that. And stay young.
or Brief RIAA Rant
It's not often that I buy an album from a band that I'm not very familiar with. I've heard of Travis before, but aside from the two radio friendly singles "Sing" and "Side," I had little idea what to expect from them. I kept seeing two copies of their "12 Memories" album at the used music store down the street, so after some preliminary research online, I downloaded a low-quality copy of the album to find out what it was like.
Holy crap.
The next day, Sarah and I went back there and I bought the album and their most popular release "The Man Who." Even though technically the band doesn't see a penny of the money I spent to buy the album, they can bet that I'll be purchasing their next release on the same day that it hits shelves. I can't even list how many artists I've found this way - use a torrent site to find an album that fans recommend, listen to it a few times, and then decide to either buy the album or not (and then deleting the album I downloaded either way). Suck on that, RIAA. I admit that there probably aren't many people who are as honest about downloading as I am. But let's face it: people don't want to buy albums when they have no idea what they're buying. Bands that put some of their songs on MySpace or media players embedded in their websites help, but this idea is still catching on pretty slowly. They should give us some more alternatives before they start attacking the torrents.
But back to the music. You should be excited about Travis, and I think you will be after you listen to "Happy to Hang Around." The boys also have an extensive b-side catalog, some of which is available through 7digital.com and other online music catalogs.
Get on that. And stay young.
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