You Can't Always Get What You Want

So, yesterday afternoon I get home from work and plan to do a little music downloading. My monthly subscription of 75 tunes on emusic.com just renewed Tuesday afternoon, so I figured I'd get my notepad out and start to get some items on the list.

First up was to polish off a bit more of the Rolling Stones catalog from the 60's. I type in the artist but nothing comes up. Huh. It says they currently do not have them available at this time. I go and try a few more artists I had written down from last month but didn't get to due to running out of my allotment. Huh. Marianne Faithful, Bobby Rydell, Herman's Hermits, ? and the Mysterians, and a few other folks from the 60's - none of them coming up. What do they and the Stones have in common? All were on the ABKCO label.

Back on April 3rd, emusic.com touted proudly getting the ABKCO catalog on their site. I was very excited. I had listened to a lot of the Rolling Stones by osmosis (ie. my older brother was/is a huge fan and had their entire catalog on vinyl). I liked a lot of the older stuff just fine. So when I saw that they had hit my download service, I was eager to download stuff. I got most of the big hits before my April numbers ran out - so I had kept the later part (mostly covers from their earlier albums, etc.) until my May 14th date.

Turns out I was too late. On May 3rd, emusic.com pulled down all the ABKCO stuff.

At first, I felt hugely bummed. This was high quality recordings from a big label, and I hoped that it would signal good things to come. Maybe they'll still come back. I'm hoping.

Next, I felt good for at least getting what I had gotten. I know I managed to get five or six complete Stones albums from that period, and they were the ones I knew the most. It also put me into a new mindset where if I find something on emusic I'd like to download that I need to get it (if I have downloads left) while the getting is still good. You just never know how long something will be there.

I do have to keep in mind too that, with my subscription rate, I am only paying 27 cents per download. So, if I find three solid albums per month for my $20 and then can get a bunch of handfuls of miscellaneous songs here and there too, I'm still coming out way ahead of buying physical CD's.

So, I'm not mad at emusic.com - they can't control which labels give and then take away stuff. I just have to plan a bit better myself is all.