Daily Download

Led Zeppelin - Mothership It's difficult for me to explain my musical tastes, but the short version is that I grew up in a household where my father liked Tchaikovsky, both my father and mother liked big bands (like the Dorsey Brothers) and Nat King Cole, my mother liked Al Martino, and my older brother liked Bobby Vinton and, later, the Grateful Dead.

Consequently, I have a rather large collection of classical music on CD's, a much smaller collection of old jazz recordings, a very large (but not completely comprehensive) collection of classic rock CD's, and a large collection of blues CD's, sprinkled with a smattering of pop, easy listening, Celtic (Clannad, The Chieftains), folk, and some songs that are virtually unclassifiable.

The classical music isn't on my iPod, but everything else is - it's one of those big iPods - and every morning on the way to work and every evening on the drive home I plug the iPod into the auxiliary port of my RAV-4, put it on "Shuffle Songs," and enjoy the results.

Well, most of the time I enjoy the results. Some days are better than others musically, but that is how life is supposed to be, isn't it? The clashes in styles don't really bother me. I can go from Laura Nyro singing Angel in the Dark to Django Reinhardt performing Night and Day to Eric Clapton's version of After Midnight to James Cotton's Ain't Doin' Too Bad, and appreciate them all.

But the fact is, after loading all my CD's onto my iPod, I realized that there are just some album cuts that I've never really cared for. Let's face it: we buy CD's for a few songs or, at best, for most of the songs, but rarely for all of the songs. So I've been selectively weeding.

Even more distressing is the fact that there are some songs that really should be on my iPod that are not. I've written elsewhere about what I might consider essential iPod music. What I want to address here is how one might go about getting those missing songs that one feels one needs on one's iPod.

Most of the time, I still buy CD's; for example, I purchased the Deluxe Easy Rider soundtrack double CD not long ago, and was happy with the result. But the problem now is that many of the compilations I might buy are heavily duplicative of what I already have, and many of the non-compilations only have one or two songs that I want. I've resisted the idea of downloading music, because: 1) I'm a long way past being a teenager, even if I do have an iPod; 2) I've not been convinced that it's economically wise, and; 3) I'm stubborn and set in my ways.

Anyway, recently I have started downloading songs, but not, as one might expect, from the iTunes Store, which I think I may subconsciously resent for having such terrible "free" songs every week. (Maybe it's not that subconscious.) Instead, I've been going to Amazon MP3 downloads. MP3 music downloads work with any media player, including iPods. The prices are the same, and in a few cases, better, at Amazon than at the iTunes Store. And Amazon has a neat little free utility you can download that takes care of everything you need; if you do have an iPod, it will even place any downloads you purchase directly into your iTunes library.

My idea, then, is to do a daily download, in order to get those missing songs. Last night I downloaded Grand Funk Railroad's I'm Your Captain / Closer to Home (2002 Digital Remaster). Grand Funk wasn't the best band in the world, but I did see them in concert at Shea Stadium the week Jim Morrison died, so there's a bit of nostalgia in this choice, and I do like the song. Apparently, others do, too; it was in the Top 100 Downloads at Amazon (I think), and so cost 89 cents, instead of the usual 99 cents. Tonight, I downloaded Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven, (2007 Remastered LP version). Can you believe I didn't have this song in my CD collection? Neither could I. Anyway, that one cost 99 cents, so I guess it wasn't in Amazon's Top 100; no accounting for taste, eh?

I realize that if I download one song per day at 99 cents for all of 2008 I will, by the end of the year, be out of pocket to the tune (no pun intended) of $362.34 - because 2008 is a leap year - but, on the bright side, I'll end up with 366 additional songs I really want on my iPod.

From time to time, I'll let you know how I'm doing. I'm looking at my own list of the 100 Greatest Rock Songs of All Time for suggestions, but if you have any other ideas, feel free to drop a line - my e-mail's djmcadam@gmail.com .

Cheers, and happy listening!