A few weeks ago, I bought two very different albums with different purchasing methods within a couple days of each other.

Feist (myspace) the Reminder (amazon mp3) I’d heard “1 2 3 4″ just like everyone. It’s a brilliant and addictive song. That sort of, unfortunately, dominated my early listenings to the album. I’d skip ahead to hear it or sort of tune out until it came on. Once I started listening to the whole album, I started liking it. I’m not usually a fan of people who sing in an ornamented manner, but Lesley Feist has a charming way of doing this. In fact, there’s a lot of charm to this album; even songs like “Honey Honey”, on which I find the instrumentation annoying, manage to be charming. This is a really eclectic album with pure acoustic pop masterpieces like “1 2 3 4″ and “Feel it All” (which may actually be a better song than “1 2 3 4″) standing out; other favorites include the slow ballad “The Park”, the modern pop + vintage gospel of “Sea Lion Woman” and the slow-and-sparse-with-slight-bluesy-turns “Brandy Alexander”. Overall I’d recommend it.

Feist - I Feel it All (mp3)

Jose Gonzalez (myspace) In Our Nature (amazon mp3) As opposed to Feist, this is a very consistent album and I knew more or less what to expect from it. Jose Gonzalez plays classical guitar inventively and has a nice voice. This album does have a few touches that Veneer lacked, more percussion and extra voices. He still develops guitar lines with beautiful sonorities; the thumb line on the guitar of “the Next” is a particularly good example. He also has some really nice guitar rhythms. “Down the Line” is this year’s “Crosses” in that respect and is also one of the stand-outs of the album. He, of course, also has a cover that people like, putting live favorite “Teardrop” (originally by Massive Attack) down on record finally. Is this album better than Veneer? It’s hard to say; I’m coming at this album from a different perspective, knowing Jose’s style and sound much better coming into this record. This album isn’t surprisingly good or even overwhelmingly good; it’s just plain good and that’s fine with me.

Jose Gonzalez - Down the Line (mp3s)

I found the Feist at a local record chain. I’d only heard “1 2 3 4″ but I still bought it, even though I don’t make many risk-buys [1] these days. Jose Gonzalez wasn’t available there, so after some mulling and thinking about it for a few days, I gave the Amazon mp3 store a try.

I find this about as noteworthy as the albums involved: that I am still more willing to purchase a CD that I don’t know if I will like for more money (about $13) than an mp3 album of an artist I like quite a lot for less money ($8.99). I was a little surprised at this. I like mp3s, I use my ipod or my laptop for almost all of my music playing [2] but in the end I still want a physical copy. I’m not sure if I’m a typical consumer–in fact, I’m largely convinced that I’m not in my age demographic–but it seems there still is a perceived difference between physical and virtual media and the gap may be large.

That said, I think the Amazon MP3 Store is really, definitely a step up from other options: easy to use, fairly cheap, pretty good selection, DRM-free and high quality MP3s. Emusic (which I have a subscription to) fails in the selection department. iTunes fails in the DRM department (mostly) and it’s more expensive than Amazon.

[1] I call CDs that I’m not sure if I’ll like or haven’t been able to preview much risk-buys. On the other end of the spectrum, I’ll often buy CDs that I already have previewed extensively (in mp3 form) due to connections or friends and I’ll buy it to show that I think the album’s good enough to pay money for. (I’ll often do this at concerts by the artist as it’s often cheaper for me and the artist get’s a bigger cut of the money.) Sure-bets I guess you could call these. Of course there are many possibilities in between.

[2] I should note that as radio DJ it is easier to play off of CDs (both in set up and in timing transitions) and I feel a commitment to playing the highest quality music available, especially now that we have a gorgeous sounding 192 kps AAC stream.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 5:20 am Posted by adrian in SF bay area, industry, mp3s, record reviews, tour dates. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.