Tonight, I signed up for Amazon’s free cloud player service—specifically because of news items I read about Amazon’s new AutoRip service. AutoRIP is something that ought to have been done a long time ago. If you buy a qualifying CD, subject to the terms of licensing between Amazon and the major record labels, you get the dics shipped to your house and you get an electronic copy placed in your Amazon Cloud Player library.

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I have a large iTunes library. It doesn’t represent everything I have ever heard, nor everything I have ever loved, nor even everything I own. But that iTunes library is becoming a beast to manage. There is SO much data about the music—that isn’t the music—but is integral. Recently I have made it a personal project to make sure a single piece of information exists for each track: the release date, the day it became available for sale to the public.

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I don’t claim any special privilege, knowledge, education or access. Like many friends, and friends I haven’t met, I simply love music. I got my first portable FM radio somewhere around the Christmas of 1978, and I have been trying to carry music everywhere with me ever since. It means that much to me. In 1990 I went to work at a record store. You see, I thought I knew about music.

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