In praise of Apple's iTunes

Today I downloaded two marvelous compilations by lovely Irish female artists Lisa Kelly and Chloe Agnew. Never heard of them, but a rather random search on the Apple iTunes store unearthed these beauties. Lisa and Kelly are beauties both in terms of their looks and how they sound.

If you scroll backwards on this blog, you'll see that (a) I became an Irish citizen earlier this year and (b) that I'm a very big fan of the Irish band U2 and the equally talented family group, The Corrs. So iTunes led me to Lisa and Kelly, and within mere minutes I had downloaded both their albums. Lovely music indeed, but the bigger story is that iTunes brought buyer and seller together in a way that Borders and Barnes & Noble really can't. Digital music is ultra portable and ultra compact. I have enough jewel cases with missing CDs and as many CDs with missing jewel cases. And while I'm old enough to remember how big vinyl albums are (were), the 'compact disc' is STILL too big in this day and age of MP3s.

Aside from the complete compactness and portability of the MP3 (tracks slide seamlessly from iTunes-->PC-->iPod-->CD), the whole iTunes franchise brought Kelly and Chloe to me. In fact, I'm on a first-name basis with them already...LOL. Seriously, I know that I'd never come across either artist by wandering through my local Barnes & Noble. So, three cheers to Apple and iTunes for developing the de facto standard in modern musical content discovery and delivery.

And while this entry is mostly meant to praise Apple and iTunes, please check out Lisa Kelly and Chloe Agnew from Ireland. My wife tells me that one or both of these lovely ladies appear on PBS from time to time.