I guess I should thank Mo Ostin?
Exploring the Amazon MP3 downloads
Honolulu wasn’t a hotbed of indie rock when I was growing up — I don’t think it’s a hotbed of indie rock even now — but to its credit, it did have room for Tower Records and Jelly’s Comics and Music. The stores stocked mostly major label product, and what post-punk music was available were on the majors.
As my appetite for music grew, I developed a sense of what labels were more in tune with my taste than others. More times than not, the bands I liked were somehow linked to WEA. My ultimate geek dream was to work for Nonesuch Records. Actually, it still is. Before it was blinked out of existence, I would have wanted a gig at Elektra.
Warner Bros. Music Group is still holding out on the digital right management issue, so as a result, the "music of my youth" is not available as Amazon MP3 downloads. Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. seems to be dragged kicking and screaming into a world without DRM, but then again, Warner isn’t on top of the world anymore.
When it was, boy did it have a roster.
Sire? Had the Replacements, Talking Heads, the Smiths, Depeche Mode, Erasure. Reprise? The B-52’s, Enya, Emmylou Harris, Faith No More. Elektra? 10,000 Maniacs, Tracy Chapman, the Sugarcubes, Freedy Johnston, with Kronos Quartet, Bill Frisell, Robin Holcomb and Steve Reich on Nonesuch alone.
That’s just the stuff I liked. Neil Young, Linda Rondstadt, Frank Sinatra and Paul Simon recorded for WEA labels.
I’ve been browsing Amazon MP3 downloads for the past two days, and when I think of an old album I never got around to getting by an artist I’ve always wanted to explore, they seem to end up on WEA. Television? Elektra. Hüsker Dü? Warner Bros. Joy Division? Reprise. Throwing Muses? Sire. Recent favorites also draw blanks. Early Café Tacuba is on Warner Bros. Latin.
Maybe at some point Warner Bros. will give its blessing on DRM-free files. For now, I’ll see what EMI and Universal have to offer, and the indie stuff? I’ll keep relying on eMusic.