As though it were not enough for us to have to suffer through Apple and their fanboi’s constant over-hyping of their over-priced, over-rated, under-performing hardware and their smut-hating, prudish and censorious App store tendencies, we now have to deal with people telling us that their “record has been released on iTunes”

Yes, I admit it, I am a dinosaur. I think that if I “buy” something I “own” it. BUT, do I really “own” something if I cannot sell it to someone else? And if I cannot sell it, did I really “buy” it to begin with? It’s because of this that I don’t use iTunes or the iTunes Store and am loath to use others. eMusic is an exception because of the superior bit rate and long-standing non-DRM stance.

First I noticed was the Rusko “OMG” record, which appeared on iTunes in April and not in stores until June.

A couple of other low-lights:
Endless hype from the UK underground massive promoting the excellent new Katy B single “On a Mission” as “finally out now”. I was so excited I went to look it up on amazon UK, no luck. Yes, it’s on iTunes and Boomkat and, I assume other download services, but I cannot find a physical object with it.

New music: Björk – The Comet Song A song by Björk for the Moomins film. Available August 24 on iTunes.

Can a song be said to be truly “released” when there is no physical manifestation of it? We know that the charts have incorporated digital “sales” for years now. We even have had examples, in the UK, of singles going number on the strength of downloads only.

But somehow it still rubs me the wrong way…