I'm a big fan of music. At least, I like to think so. I know there are others who know more, have more, go to concerts more, whatever. But lately, I've really been into new music (or, at least, new music to me). I've probably bought seven or eight CDs in the last two or three months. That's more than I've bought in the three years before then. I've got another six or seven on my wishlist, too. I've gotten most of my music at CD Warehouse lately. Costs a lot less, but it's sometimes tough to find what you're looking for.

I think a big part of my reason for buying so many CDs is that I'm not so much into downloading music anymore. In the past, if I liked a song, I'd download it. Now, I'll go out and buy the CD. And while I do like iTunes for my music library, I'm not likely to use their store (unless it's for the free music they do every once in a while. Here's how I find out when they're giving something away.) The reason: I've got an iPod on loan from work, but when that goes away, my other MP3 player doesn't support iTMS's DRM. I don't want to be stuck with a bunch of music that I can't take with me. And I don't want to go through the hassle of burning them to CD and then ripping them back down to MP3s.

The other great place I've been finding music is Last.fm. I don't really understand how it works, but it's basically a custom streaming radio station. You can have it find similar artists or use "global tags" which have been set by other users. It also plugs in to iTunes to see what you've been playing, which helps it know what other stuff you might like. I've been hearing a lot of Counting Crows, Ben Folds, Death Cab for Cutie, Iron and Wine, and the like. Even a little bit of Johnny Cash, which I've really been enjoying. I'd highly recommend it.

Ok. So about MP3s and the like. I used to download a lot of music. I also ripped darn near every CD that crossed my path--my parents' music, my brother's, my sister's... If it was decent, that is. My parents got my brother and sister MP3 players for Christmas, and Asta and I got them a bunch of CDs. I did my duty and ripped them. A couple of weeks, though, I made a big decision:

It was time to go legal.

I don't know that I was really feeling guilty, but I've been trying to "go legal" on all of my software, music, etc. I got a new Mac Mini a couple of weeks ago (just before they announced the new Intel minis... that's another story...) and everything on it is properly licensed or open source.

All of this is to say that my music collection was cut about in half. I'm working on getting some of the albums that I really liked now (I had an awful lot of music that I never listened to anyway). CD Warehouse is my friend in this process. I also listen to a lot of internet radio because I like the variety. I'll try to provide some reviews of CDs (like this post. Most of the time, though, I'll only review music I like. Ah well. If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I love variety.

The Moon Is Down (Further Seems Forever)

I really enjoy this album. It's a little on the emo side of things, but sometime's that's just what you need. Unfortunately, I'm unable to listen to it right now because my MP3 player's battery is dead. MP3 player? Aren't those illegal or something? No. More on my music collection later.