Don't worry, this post won't be as pompous as the title makes it sound. But I have been buying albums - four in the past four days - which is strange to think, given that I spend half my professional life writing about the problems the music industry is having getting people to pay for recorded music.
Only one of them was a CD - the Hot Leg album, ordered from Amazon. The other three were all digital purchases from iTunes, and were impulse buys to varying degrees.
I bought the Franz Ferdinand album from iTunes on my PC after reading an interview with the band, then grabbed the Lily Allen album (also on PC) this morning after hearing The Fear again on the radio.
And then while in the Music Ally office today, Juan played me a riff from the album by The Answer, and I bought that on the spot through my iPhone.
Well, it was a GREAT riff.
And it's made me realise that actually, technology has progressed to the point where buying an album - for me - is an impulse purchase, just as it was in the days when I had to walk past Virgin Megastore on the way to work. A few clicks, or taps in the case of the iPhone, and there it is.
Without really noticing it, I've almost lost the need to own physical copies, and kicked the fear of my iTunes downloads not working on any other device ever. Even if that's still (a bit) true.
It's quite a thought. But I'm just as pleased about the fact that I'm really excited, for different reasons, about hearing all four albums. I was starting to worry that I was jaded - either through 'nobody new is as good as my old favourites' old-fartedness, or by the sheer availability of music online.
When you can listen to anything you want whenever you want, do you stop getting excited about it? Thankfully not.
Anyway, that's my week's home-office listening sorted. Impressions so far? The Lily album is ace - smart, interesting and proper pop music. The Franz album is going to take a bit more listening, but has the makings of a grower. Hot Leg just puts a smile on your face, even if the odd novelty bit does grate. And I'm shocked it's taken me this long to find The Answer, given their blend of the Black Crowes, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. A wonderful idea indeed.
Hopefully that's not too pompous - I'm not that good at writing about music itself, rather than about the business or technology around it. Anyway, this post marks A New Start for this blog - I'm determined to write something every day about something, rather than just lists of links to stuff I've written, or apologies for not posting for months.
