Back when I was at school, we all despised compilations. Thing is, they have no artistic integrity. Artists make albums, record companies make compilations.<\/p>\n
It seems we lost the argument. When I search for an artist\u00a0on Amazon and sort by bestselling, all the top choices seem\u00a0to\u00a0be compilations.\u00a0Despite myself, I buy\u00a0’em. It’s got all my favourites on, I reason.<\/p>\n
Then I remember why I hate them. It\u00a0has all my favourites on, but two of them are the live version, and I wanted the studio version. Or vice versa. So then I have to buy the\u00a0album that had the version I really wanted. And then I have crazy duplication.<\/p>\n
I don’t even like it when they stuff extra tracks on the end of a classic album (I don’t mind when it’s a separate\u00a0CD).\u00a0The bonuses can be interesting, but they don’t fit. Unless, of course, it was a compilation to begin with.<\/p>\n
There’s another reason I hate compilations. Sometimes it’s the only way<\/strong> to get some song that was released as a single, or some such. So you have to buy the compilation, 95% of which you already own, just for that one song.<\/p>\n I realise that this is one good thing about buying downloads. You only buy what you actually want. Well, I’ll cheerfully buy from Robert Fripp’s music download store<\/a>, where the downloads are DRM-free and uncompressed, but not iTunes or one of the Windows DRM stores where neither of those is true. Actually, there is a Windows DRM store that offers lossless WMA, but the CD is still, usually, a much better deal.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, I realise that the CD is dying and it will be download-only at some future time. I’m pinning my hopes on a sane subscription scheme. In the meantime, did I mention that I hate compilations?<\/p>\n Tags: cds<\/a> drm<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Back when I was at school, we all despised compilations. Thing is, they have no artistic integrity. Artists make albums, record companies make compilations. It seems we lost the argument. When I search for an artist\u00a0on Amazon and sort by bestselling, all the top choices seem\u00a0to\u00a0be compilations.\u00a0Despite myself, I buy\u00a0’em. It’s got all my favourites … Continue reading Why I hate compilations<\/span>