wnd's weblog

Today I had my first experience in purchasing music in form of digital download. Everything went better that I ever dared to expect.

It was probably a month ago when I came across yet another random YouTube video on IRC. On this particular video two artists I’d never heard of performed live with nothing but a drumset, keyboard and a looper used by the singer. (Please excuse me if I got the name “looper” all wrong.) I found the song most interesting and checked YouTube for more. I continued to listened to this playlist for some time until I closed the browser that didn’t have Flash disabled. I moved on.

After I finished listening all changes between HVSC 53 and 58 I needed something else to listen for change. I then remembered Sóley. Today I decided to spend some money to support the artist. At first I checked a record store that, I think you could say, specialises in indie and alternative music - or anything but mainstream. They had a single copy of the CD available, but as they didn’t have it locally where I live, I would have to wait for it. Besides that, I would then have to rip the CD and find a place to keep the physical media.

After some consideration and then a little search work I found that Boomkat was selling a digital copy in FLAC. I didn’t spot anything (too) alarming in their website and decided to give it a go. Two minutes later I had downloaded an unencrypted zip archive with perfectly fine FLAC files and covert art in JPEG in it. Contrary to my expectations the whole ordeal was quite painless. They didn’t require me to enter irrelevant info such as my home address, click through a questionnaire of my music preferences or even create an account beforehand.

I probably won’t be listening to this piece of art for as long as I will listen to HVSC, but this experience certainly restored a bit of that little faith I have in humanity.