digital downloads

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Mos Def Selling New Album Through T-Shirts
Dell Download Store Selling Microsoft Apps In Realtime—But Not Cheap
Cool Album Art and Packaging: Records, Cassettes, CDs Then Nothing
I Love Downloadable Media, But It Makes For a Crappy Gift
Amazon Game Downloads Store Offers 'Try Before You Buy' Titles for $10
Is iTunes Ditching DRM Tomorrow?
Microsoft Online Store Lets You Download Windows and Office
Vudu's HD Offerings Top Everyone, They Offer $200 In Recognition of Their Own Awesomeness
Lala Unveils iPhone App, Unusual 10-Cent Song Sales
Dell Preloading Select Computers with Iron Man

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GitEmSteveDave_ForgotNametag
06/19/09

In reply to Mos Def Selling New Album Through T-Shirts
Sadly I'm more of a fan of Mos Def's acting career than I am of his music. Is that wrong?
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Kaiser-Machead
06/19/09

@NerdBurger_GitEmSteveDave: Fans, are an illusion. His music career, doubly so.
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DaiWalka
06/19/09

@Kaiser-Machead: Record sales, and "the illusions", would tend to disagree.
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Kaiser-Machead
06/19/09

@DaiWalka: I'll find any excuse to use a Ford Prefect line.
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Webran61
06/19/09

@NerdBurger_GitEmSteveDave: Listen to the new album. You will become a fan. He's a better rapper than even Kanye West, though nowadays since 808s, that's not saying much.
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GitEmSteveDave_ForgotNametag
06/19/09

@Webran61: I don't consider Kanye a rapper. Just like I think anyone who uses Auto-tune should be shot, w/rare exceptions. Like the Vince Slap Chop Re-mix. It's the music equivalent of justifiable homicide.
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Adrian Covert
06/19/09

@Webran61: Yeah, The Ecstatic is pretty great. It only took him 10 years to start caring about music again.
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EBone
06/11/09

In reply to Dell Download Store Selling Microsoft Apps In Realtime—But Not Cheap
My parent company has a deal w/ Microsoft for our employees to purchase either MS Exchange Suite 2007 or MS Office 2008 for Mac for $9.95 each, direct download. Beat that Dell!
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ZLevee
04/16/09

In reply to Cool Album Art and Packaging: Records, Cassettes, CDs Then Nothing
This is partly why I still buy CDs. And for digital files I can just rip them myself.

This has proven to be a great strategy (aside from storage space) for a variety of reasons -- for example most sites used to be encode music at 128kbps, whereas now they're commonly encoded at a higher rate. With the actual disc these restrictions are irrelevant, and I can always re-rip if I want a diffrent format or higher sampling rate.
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92BuickLeSabre
04/16/09

In reply to Cool Album Art and Packaging: Records, Cassettes, CDs Then Nothing
I miss that bizarre sweet smell that came from a newly opened cassette.

They smelled like some kind of bizarro berry bubble-gum.
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Rabid Penguin
04/16/09

In reply to Cool Album Art and Packaging: Records, Cassettes, CDs Then Nothing
Wasn't there Yoko Ono / John Lennon album with those two naked on the front? Disturbing.

Best Ever:

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fallenturtle
04/16/09

@Rabid Penguin:

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but the original Beatles white album (on vinyl) didn't say the The Beatles like the CD version does.
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Rabid Penguin
04/16/09

@fallenturtle: To be honest, i don't know. I only have the CD version. But it would be difficult to see a white square on a white background :c)

I actually didn't care much for the White Album. Two of my favorite Beatles songs are on it (While my Guitar Gently Weeps, Rocky Raccoon), but Revolution Number 9 pretty much messes up the rest of the album for me :c)
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juddcarlos2003
04/16/09

In reply to Cool Album Art and Packaging: Records, Cassettes, CDs Then Nothing
Why has Gizmodo turned into an audiophile's site?

I'm tired of seeing all these headlines with the words "album" "speakers" "music" "label" "100,000k speakers" etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc

Sure its great to have an article or two but MAN, a plethora of articles that have to do with sound? Geez. (or is it jeez)

Oh, thanks for the Album Art Exchange link!
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ZLevee
04/16/09

@juddcarlos2003: I for one find this week of music-related stories more interesting than most weeks. Suck it up and you will have your Apple-loving site back next week.
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juddcarlos2003
04/16/09

@ZLevee: Noticed my past posts, huh? thanks

but I find most articles interesting but mostly comment on the ones pertaining to Apple news. But if you find this week interesting, that's cool.
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ZLevee
04/16/09

@juddcarlos2003: that wasn't a dis against you by the way. Actaully I waw takign a jab at Giz, which itself shows an Apple obsession.
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SJRNWT
04/16/09

In reply to Cool Album Art and Packaging: Records, Cassettes, CDs Then Nothing
Can anyone tell me how bad it is for the environment to produce CDs? That's one of the main reasons why I download music instead of buying it (seriously, money isn't everything).
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OMG! Ponies!
04/16/09

@SJRNWT: The claim was against longboxes. Record stores liked them because they presented a large display to the customer. But, they used non-recycled cardboard.

The merchants tried to argue that longboxes were necessary for both security and to display the album, but were quickly contradicted by the example of cassettes, which were smaller and usually shelved with only the spine showing. Which is why so many cassettes had bright bold big lettering on the spine - that might be all the customer sees.
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OMG! Ponies!
04/16/09

In reply to Cool Album Art and Packaging: Records, Cassettes, CDs Then Nothing
Wilson, you need to do an edit. Your lack of any Beatles album cover is deplorable. And either Led Zeppelin 1 or IV is more iconic than II.

And my favorite longbox was the one for "Use Your Illusion". One was saffron and the other was blue. I cut out one and pasted it to the case of my first electric guitar.
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seanerone
04/16/09

@OMG! Ponies!: lol, you think this gadget site cares about crazy awesome cover art from the Beatles that has been copied and imitated so many times there has yet to be a number invented for it?
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OMG! Ponies!
04/16/09

@seanerone: The least Wilson could have done was used "Houses of the Holy", which is infinitely more awesome than "Led Zeppelin II" in terms of artwork.
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ZLevee
04/16/09

@OMG! Ponies!: Those Zep albums are all classics, but as far as album are goes the treasures are the vinyl versions of Physical Graffiti (with the cut outs windows), and In Through The Out Door (which had 6 versions and came wrapped in paper so you didn't know which version you were getting. The black and white photos had an area you could wipe with a wet towel to reveal color.)

[en.wikipedia.org]

I was lucky enough to track down all the vinyls back in the late 90s for not too much money. I even have 2 different copies of In through the Out Door, one of which has the original paper sleeve (sliced open with a razor).
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Nick
04/16/09

In reply to Cool Album Art and Packaging: Records, Cassettes, CDs Then Nothing
i can't think of a time where i didn't just pop that cd out and put it in my cd case. never really looked at the album art. does that make me a bad consumer? and tapes were great cause it told you the songs on each side right on the tape. didn't need to reference the case.
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ZLevee
04/16/09

@Nick: No, it makes you a typical consumer and a poor music fan (not meant to be a personal insult). Similarly, few people watch movie credits, but those who are cinema fanatics stay until the copyright info rolls.
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balls187
02/26/09

In reply to I Love Downloadable Media, But It Makes For a Crappy Gift
It depends on the person.

We got my gf's sister's bf 12+1 month xbox live gift card for xmas. It was by far his most favorite gift. Given the current times, he couldn't justify spending $50 on xbl service, so this was a perfect gift.
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Jrsy Devil's Advocate®
02/25/09

In reply to I Love Downloadable Media, But It Makes For a Crappy Gift
This is the only gift I give out these days...

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AKAuser
02/25/09

In reply to I Love Downloadable Media, But It Makes For a Crappy Gift
Gift cards suck.

Valve's "Steam" has gifting. I've gifted a few games using it. Very cool stuff.
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JEmlay
02/25/09

@AKAuser:

There is nothing crappy about this at all. I get iTunes cards all the time and buy games for my phone.
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ripfire
02/25/09

@JEmlay: I have a card that's more universal. It's called a credit card.
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weatherman
02/03/09

In reply to Amazon Game Downloads Store Offers 'Try Before You Buy' Titles for $10
Amazon is really making the move to pure-digital retailing quite nicely. I think there are some challenges ahead, since they have yet to achieve that destination-site status, and without hardware to drive sales (like Apple has) they're going to have an uphill battle. But at least they're making a go of it, and seem to be doing well with the music and books, even if they're not quite there yet with videos and (now) games.
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KhaiJB
02/03/09

In reply to Amazon Game Downloads Store Offers 'Try Before You Buy' Titles for $10
30 minutes?

goto www.bigfishgames.com and get the Same titles for 60 minutes then buy or not....
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Monty
12/08/08

In reply to Is iTunes Ditching DRM Tomorrow?
Unless it is in MP3 format, it would not save me the hassle of having to convert the tracks. The reason I purchase all my music from Amazon is that it starts out at 240K+ MP3 format and downloads directly into iTunes for me. I have multiple types of MP3 players, and I am way (WAY) too lazy to convert music files.
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