A personal first

For my album review, I decided to go digital. This may come as a shock, but I have never purchased an album off of iTunes. As a matter of fact, I have never purchased a single song from iTunes. Without a car, and having no desire to wait 20 minutes at the bus stop for a ride to Wal-Mart, this week I purchased KT Tunstall's new album Drastic Fantastic from the iTunes store. However, it truly does not even feel like I bought an actual album. I can't get past the thought that I really just bought a million 1's and 0's. I'm used to going into a store, actually having something in my hand that I'm going to buy, giving a cashier money, and walking out of the store with a physical object, signifying I had made a purchase. The whole nostalgia of buying an album seems to be lost when buying an album online. I enjoy walking through a store, picking up an album, taking 10 minutes to remove all the plastic wrap and protective labels, having liner notes to look at, and most importantly, having an actual CD in my hands. While it is possible to burn the tracks to a CD-R, and also the CD cover and liner notes are available to print off, just doesn't feel the same.

There are, however, some added bonuses to buying the album through iTunes. There is obviously the elimination of not having to drive or catch a bus to the nearest best buy or record store. iTunes definitely has a nicer price than most record stores, with only $9.99 per album. It is also nice to have the ability to instantly upload the album onto my iPod, within only seconds of purchasing the album. After doing some further investigating, it seems that many albums sold on iTunes offer bonus tracks or videos.

So have I been converted to using iTunes for all my album purchases? Not quite. I am still a fan of purchasing an actual, physical CD. But the idea of purchasing an album off iTunes is definitely something I will consider in the future.