Musical Choice

I have become a big fan of iTunes. As noted in an earlier post, some people think the model (purchase versus rent) is wrong but there is another issue in the model that I think is more important. On Saturday I was in Barnes and Noble buying a present for a new grand nephew. I stopped in the record shop and bought a CD of some bluegrass performers. I know the group and thought it would be a good addition to my collection. It turned out to be a disappointment. The album had a couple of songs that I really liked but several that I did not.

On Sunday, I was looking around iTunes and sampled an artist named Cathy Fink - who plays banjo in traditional styles. She had several albums on the site and I spent a couple of minutes listening to samples of her work, decided I liked it and purchased a couple of her albums. A the same time I also purchased one song from another group without having to purchase the entire album. That model seems a lot better than the hit and miss of purchase in a record store. I realize that B&N allows some sampling of some albums but the iTunes model allows that for all the music on the site.