SnowGhost Music

Put yourself in these shoes: You've just left Ted's house. Ted is not just any friend. Ted is the guy who has European EPs on vinyl of bands that only existed for 2 weeks, has tickets to the show that the venue doesn't even know about yet, and has a lifelong to subscription to Rolling Stone, yet he loathes it for never containing any information that he didn't already know. You wonder, if Ted loves music so fanatically, why hasn't he actually made any of his own? But that's Ted's inner struggle to deal with. You respect Ted's taste and you meet most of the bands you like through Ted. It's people like Ted that keep us from ever having to rely on the radio to hear "new" music, so you're okay with the fact that after playing you a great song or two, Ted absolutely refuses to lend you the CD or even burn you a copy. As you leave Ted's house with some great new song stuck in your head, you are fully aware that it is up to you to track down this song, this album or this band.

So how do you take your music? Do you care about how good it sounds? Do you worry about how much it costs? Do you like disposable songs that breeze in and out of your life, or do you like the tangible permanence of a CD? Do you care how long you have to go between discovering a song and actually getting to sit down and really listen to it? Do you like learning about the band, their music, or how they produce it? For the sake of excitement, we will simply say yes to all of the above, just to see what's available to you, dear consumer.

Ted would sooner cut off his own heavily-pierced ear before listening to music on a cell phone or an iPod, but Ted doesn't jog. But maybe you do. And maybe you love listening to hundreds of songs as you run a half-marathon. Clearly you don't care if the song you are listening to has been compressed to roughly one-tenth of its original scope in its conversion to an MP3 file. Downloadable MP3s fit your active lifestyle, but what about the fancy new speakers you just bought for your car? You'll need the CD to really get the most out of those speakers, as well as the ones hooked up to your stereo at home.

Where and how you listen to music will usually be the biggest factor involved when deciding between downloading, burning, or old-fashioned CD buying. Buying a CD works for you when you know you're going to want it for your car stereo, but also to import onto your iPod for your lengthy jogs. But maybe you just want the one song by that punk band that pumps you up to put into your iPod before you go bungee shark wrestling. In this case, it's probably time to shop on the internet singles scene.

The one song purchase is probably of great value to the bungee shark wrestler, since he or she goes through songs like a... bungee shark wrestler. And if the computer where you store your music suddenly decides to erase its own hard drive, it's okay because you were no longer into those songs that were irretrievably stored on there anyway. If a giant hard drive descended upon Ted's collection of music and somehow erased them, we could never even imagine the wails and shrieks that Ted would emit before likely ending his life. Ted has no qualms about spending 50% of his disposable income on his music collection. He also values albums as a whole, so downloading an entire album of songs at one to two dollars each, is not nearly as cost effective as buying the CD from Amazon, where various music outlets are competing to ensure that you will never have to pay more than ten bucks for it.

But you've just left Ted's house, and you've got to hear that song ASAP! You can't wait 3 to 5 business days for Amazon to deliver the goods. Downloading provides instant gratification, and if you're just wanting to listen from your computer then and there, it's easy to find free music to satisfy all your penny piching and impatient desires. And if you simply must know all there is to know about the band right then, hopefully there are websites maintained by people like Ted that will give you more than the average liner notes.

Lucky for you, you realize that Ted is a little crazy. You don't have to philosophically ask yourself WWTD (what would Ted do) when searching to meet your musical needs. Ted, for all his infinite wisdom, confines himself in his snobbery. But you, open-minded consumer, can revel in your options