I recently upgraded my Mac to iTunes version 4 and noticed that Apple's little "Music Store" has been built into iTunes now. I played around for awhile, experimented with finding a few things i'd want and have reached a conclusion: With the exception of not having to run other software to gain instant access to music, this is a pile of dung.

Great, so i can get 30 second song snippets of albums that are over 6 months old. Lovely, cos that's why i have mp3s... to redownload the pet shop boys collection? Oh wait, I'm sorry, the 6 OLDEST psb albums. Ridiculous. The search feature is a joke because there's very little merchandise... the $.99 per song thing is odd. It appears they price any album with at least 9 songs on it at 9.99... if there's less songs, they price it *just under* the 99/per song rate (example Massive Attack's Blue Lines with 8 tracks is 8.91). So i'd save $.09 by downloading the album as a whole rather than track by track? Gee, thanks.. that's almost worth the time it would take to download the entire thing. The other incredibly annoying thing is that most albums I found weren't available for complete download. Instead the "staff" (more on them later) has decided which are the best songs on the album and will commonly let you choose between their favorites. For instance after watching a tape of the '89 Brit Awards this weekend, I'd like to get a copy of the Cure's Disintegration to replace my long lost cassette tape. Oh wait, I can only download 9 songs from a 12 song cd. I'd really love to hear the title track 'Disintegration' or 'Prayers for Rain' but no dice because the staff doesn't deem them amongst the most important of the disc.

The most insulting feature is the "staff favorites" section. While attempting to be all indie store 'look we've got personality' about downloading music without absolutely NO personal interaction... they end up looking like total idiots. Let's pick a genre to review... say "rock". What are the staff favorites?

bob dylan - bootleg series vol 5
clash - combat rock
elton john - goodbye yellow brick road
clapton - 461 ocean boulevard
springsteeen - e street band
bowie - rise and fall of ziggy
elvis (presley) - elvis 56
inxs - listen like thieves
police - zenyatta mondatta
talking heads - little creatures
who - tommy
dishwalla - and you think you know what
rem - murmur
u2 - war
ramones - leave home
genesis - a trick of the tail
steely dan - can't buy a thrill
pink floyd - animals
traffic - low spark of high heeled...
beck - sea change

Ok so we've got one album that came out last year... the majority are from the 80s, 70s or 60s. How out of it is the "staff" of a self-professed 'music store' allowed to be? Don't get me wrong, most of this material is classically good but if you were to walk into an ACTUAL record store and this is what they had on the shelf for current staff favorites, would you run screaming like i would? Why even bother attemping to give the site personality when the personality it gets is drab, out of touch and old?

Thanks for nothing Apple. I won't stop buying your electronics but perhaps the music business is better left to someone else.