They say ladies love outlaws, but I've recently fallen for a siren who has been publicly vilified and who
could wind up on death row before our love has a chance to blossom. Her name is Napster.
This new romance was facilitated by my recent purchase of a new PC and receipt of Memory Corp.'s
SoulMate, a pocket-sized, $99.95 48MB gadget that can hold (and play) about an hour's worth of MP3 files.
Before tending to such trivial matters as installing my printer driver, I downloaded Napster and took a peek
through the file catalogs being shared by users currently online.
I was stunned. That UK-only Radiohead track I'd wanted, that vinyl-only Springsteen B-side I've
been hunting down for years, a live recording of Nirvana fumbling through "My Sharona"--it was all there,
and then some. And then some more: On average, there are more than half a million MP3 files available at
any given time on Napster.
The beauty of Napster, as with most things, is its simplicity. Most MP3 FTP sites require passwords,
two-for-one upload trades, and other such silliness. Napster (despite a stinko search function, the biggest
flaw in its interface) has you rocking after a few mouse clicks. No wonder it scares the music industry so
much.
Most of the files available via Napster--roughly 90 percent, by my hasty calculation--are songs
available on CDs found at your local record store or online music site. I stay away from those, partly
because although I'm pro-bootleg, I'm anti-counterfeit, but mostly because the stuff on Napster that flies
below the Wal-Mart/Sam Goody/CDNow radar is so much more interesting than some teenager's rip of the
new Backstreet Boys single.
Very few of the tracks I grab are readily available, legitimately released tracks. Most are obscurities:
Uncollected B-sides, stray live tracks, songs from discs long out of print. Is that nothing but a
rationalization for taking music without paying for it? Could be. But I know in good conscience that I
contribute plenty to the record industry's overflowing coffers, so I'm not about to say no to an occasional
freebie, any more than I would have 15 years ago when a friend offered to tape the new R.E.M. album for
me.
Being the old-fashioned type, I prefer "hard" copies of my music; a PC full of songs holds no appeal for
me. With no CD-R drive, I realized that the SoulMate would be of little use to me if I couldn't use it to make
CDs on my Philips consumer recorder.
No problem. With a little tinkering (and with the help of a stereo signal splitter from my electronics
store), I was soon making a nightly ritual of dumping my newly downloaded tracks onto CD. For those less
persnickety about having "keeper" copies of their songs, SoulMate functions as a plain old player, and even
includes a pair of Koss headphones.
The only problem? Between Napster and eBay, I might soon have all those recordings I've been
searching high and low for over the years. Then what in the world am I going to do with my time?
Readers' Choice
All of this month's downloadable music tips come from readers, to whom I now say thanks. If there are
great tracks or sites you want to let readers know about, please write me at dan@computeruser.com.
(Note: I'm not interested in illegal tracks or downloads that aren't free.)
Fans of world music will want to check out Ancient-Future.com. It not only
has a number of free downloads from prominent cross-cultural music and dance artists, but also a number
of world music education resources.
British pop duo Everything But the Girl has a Web site dedicated to versions of remixes from its new
album "Temperamental." The site's content changes almost weekly, so check
back often.
They Might Be Giants has never had a problem with giving music away--you might recall its
Dial-a-Song phone service, which regularly posted new songs. That service has been Netified, and a page on the band's Web site will let you in on a free MP3 track in exchange for
your e-mail address.
