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Amazon takes on Apple with DRM-free music.

I’ve used iTunes since it was first released in 2001. When music was first sold via iTunes, I bought into the idea right away and stopped buying CDs altogether. I didn’t care about DRM and I didn’t care about bit-rates. When they started selling TV shows, I didn’t hesitate to buy shows like Heroes, Lost, South Park and Lil’ Bush. When they started selling iTunes Plus tracks, I bought those too. The idea of paying a little more for better quality, unprotected music made sense to me.

Then Amazon started offering DRM-free tracks, and they started offering them for less than copy-protected, lower-quality tracks on iTunes were selling for. Initially, I resisted. I told myself that nothing could work as well as iTunes. But then I tried AmazonMP3. Yeah, there’s a couple of extra steps involved in buying and downloading a track, but it’s worth the extra quality and cost savings.

I haven’t bought from iTunes since. It’s still my player of choice, and I still get TV shows from it fairly often, but now that there’s a viable alternative for buying music, I’m not sure I can go back.

You can grab Saul Williams’ latest CD “The Inevitable Rise and Fall of Niggy Tardust” from http://niggytardust.com. Trent Reznor’s (NIN) influence can definitely be heard throughout the album (he produced it), but it’s definitely not a NIN thing… Saul Williams is funky, raw… and this album isn’t your typical hip-hop joint.

Check it out, download it for free - as in beer - and if you think it’s worth it go back and drop a few bucks for it. You won’t be disappointed.

Free At Last. According to a post on NIN.com, Trent Reznor announced the following:

Hello everyone. I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008.Exciting times, indeed.posted by Trent Reznor at 10:45 AM.

In other news, his last label-backed album “Year Zero Remixed” will be out November 20th. Rock on, Trent. Rock on.

Nine Inch Nails: Open Source Remixes. (via Graham Hancock)

Typical Beastie Boys it ain’t! The latest album from The Beastie Boys, “The Mix-Up” is definitely worth checking out. It’s purely instrumental, and man is it funky. You can snag it via iTunes (DRM-free, I might add!)

It is quite unlike anything else they’ve released… so be prepared. I would definitely regard most of the album as “chill music” - perfectly suited for office listening.

Rolling Stone’s review of Switchfoot’s new album contains this priceless jewel: Yes, Switchfoot’s members are Christians, and yes, there are lyrics on Nothing Is Sound that refer to the Lord, penitence and “the meaning of existence.” Even if you’re the sort who’s cynical about that kind of thing, the San Diego band offers enough in the way of high-voltage buzz-saw riffs and irresistible melodic hooks to make up for it on this considerably better-than-average follow-up to the group’s multiplatinum major-label 2003 debut. (Hat tip: ThinkChristian.net)

It’s interesting to see Switchfoot discussed like this… because the band appealed to me a lot before I even knew they were Christians. Funny thing is… I would hear their music being played on some of the local rock stations here in Augusta, and I never knew who they were or the name of the songs, or anything… but I love the lyrics, and love the sound… Flash forward to about a month and a half ago… I was changing channels and heard “Meant to Live” being played during the Christian program that was on TV… and the spark hit…

Meant to Live by Switchfoot

Fumbling his confidence

And wondering why the world has passed him by

Hoping that he’s bid for more than arguments

And failed attempts to fly, fly

 

[Chorus]

We were meant to live for so much more

Have we lost ourselves?

Somewhere we live inside

Somewhere we live inside

We were meant to live for so much more

Have we lost ourselves?

Somewhere we live inside

 

Dreaming about Providence

And whether mice or men have second tries

Maybe we’ve been livin with our eyes half openMaybe we’re bent and broken, broken

 

[Chorus]

 

We want more than this world’s got to offer

We want more than this world’s got to offer

We want more than the wars of our fathers

And everything inside screams for second life, yeah

 

We were meant to live for so much more

Have we lost ourselves?

We were meant to live for so much more

Have we lost ourselves?

We were meant to live for so much more

Have we lost ourselves?

We were meant to live

We were meant to live

This song… that I assumed was secular, was about so much more… Once I started to really listen to the music, it touched my soul more and more. God works everywhere…through everything.I’m glad Switchfoot’s new album has been well-received by the mainstream. I’ve really enjoyed “Nothing is Sound” so far, and encourage you to check it out if you have not yet done so…