Kablammo!

Two weeks ago, or thereabouts, I downloaded the mp3s for Radiohead‘s new album, Hail To The Thief. There I was, listening to the stuff, when it occurred to me that it was good shit. “I like this music,” I said to myself, “It’s simultaneously reminiscent of all of Radiohead’s previous work, much of which was absolutely phenomenal. Also, they decided to play some damn guitars on this album, which is a nice change of pace for them.” Having listened to the album in mp3 form repeatedly, I resolved to buy the CD the day it came out (today, June the 10^th). You see, Kazaa did what it is very good at doing: acting as a giant advertisement for music and other electronically-transferable data.

So that brings our tale to earlier today, when the album was released. Being a lazy sack of crap, I didn’t pick up a copy until 6:30 as I was heading to my Colour class. I just hucked it in my bag and didn’t look at it until later, when it turned out it was the Canadian version of the CD. No problem, right? Yeah, except for the fü¢kïng copy protection on it, which politely crashed Explorer on my computer when I put it in my drive to listen to it. Maybe I wouldn’t have cared, if it hadn’t turned out that the mp3s I’d downloaded previously were a different mix from what was on the CD proper (judging from the first 10 seconds of the first track, which managed to play successfully before all hell broke loose). Since the store I got the CD from was already closed, I ran to my local Virgin Oligopoly Store to get a copy of the US release, ostensibly free of computer-breaking crap. Success! You know what? There’s a surprising amount of people at the Virgin Records in Union Square at 11:00 on a Tuesday night. Surprising to me, at least.

All is good now, basically; I’ve got a working CD and it’s already been ripped to mp3s which are residing in my giant winamp playlist. Too bad I had to spend $30 on a $15 CD for that to happen. I’d better be able to return the shite copy tomorrow… I’d be happy to accept store credit, even, since there’s bunches of other music I need to buy. But damn, I’m incensed about this copy protection bullshit. E’en more incensed than I was yesterday and earlier, hard to believe as that may be!

What does it mean when your armpits cry stinky tears?