The Unemployment Pages

Tuesday was a big new release day at the local record store for me. But I must admit, I didn’t go to the local record store, as I would have liked to. Instead, I went to Best Buy. I know, I should support local businesses but I can’t afford to. I’m fairly poor these days so I have to go with whatever is cheapest. Anyway, I was able to pick up the new cds by Elliott Smith (From A Basement On The Hill) and Jimmy Eat World (Futures).

I’m super excited to finally get the new Elliott Smith album and so far I’m really liking it. It’s not my favorite album he’s released but it’s growing on me. I’m sure I’ll write more about it later.

The Jimmy Eat World album is rockin’ as would be expected from these guys. It’s a bit harder sounding than the last album (I mean that in a good way). I’m sure I’ll have more of an opinion later on this one too. Since I was shopping at Best Buy, I was able to afford the “Deluxe Edition” of the cd and I’m glad I did. The Deluxe Edition comes with a bonus second disc that has the same track listing as the album but in demo format. Since I’ve recorded quite a few demo versions of songs in my day I’m curious to hear what these songs sound like. In addition to the bonus disc, since this cd was purchased at Best Buy I got a Napster code to download an exclusive Jimmy Eat World song for free. You really can’t go wrong with the Deluxe Edition if you’re looking for a big Jimmy Eat World fix.

Now for the part of my post where I complain.

I haven’t been to Napster since it was shut down a few years ago. Now that you have to pay for all of the music you download it’s not nearly as good. It’s overly corporate. I don’t even think they have chat rooms anymore, which was one of my favorite things about Napster. I used to be able to talk music to a bunch of dorks while I waited for my songs to download. I will say that the software that is included with Napster for burning discs is a good idea. So, I had the coupon for my free song and I entered the code and began my download. The download time was very short and I was impressed. Here’s the part that really pissed me off. The song only comes in wma format. In addition to not being able to successfully burn that file type to a cd ever, Winamp (our main mp3/cd player) will not play wma files. If I want to hear this song now I have to open Windows Media Player and wait ten minutes for the player to open (we have a lack of memory on our computer). I don’t want to hear the song in ten minutes; I want to hear it now. It’s just a hassle. Why couldn’t the song be in mp3 format for all of those people who don’t like Windows Media? What about people with Macintosh computers?

Song Of The Day:
“Bill Gates Must Die” – John Vanderslice