I first got into Our Lady Peace after seeing their second album, Clumsy, among a friend's MP3 collection in the dorms at UCLA during my first year of undergrad. I loved what I heard so I immediately bought Clumsy and their first album, Naveed. Since then, I've always downloaded each new album before buying it, usually months in advance of the release date. But I've always, and I mean ALWAYS, bought the CD the first day it was available because I want to support the artist and I prefer CDs over MP3s. Unless it's encoded at 192kbps or higher, MP3s just don't sound as good as CDs and they don't come with the artwork (even when pirates scan the CD booklet, I can't take it with me on the bus).

Well the new OLP album, Healthy In Paranoid Times, was no exception to my download-then-buy routine. Thanks to broadband, I had the entire album on MP3s in less than an hour after learning a new album was going to come out. I've since rocked out to the MP3s right up until today, when the CD was offically released and I bought it at Best Buy along with the new Our Lady Peace: Live DVD. I even deleted the illegal MP3s, though that's entirely an issue of saving hard drive space than disposing of evidence.

I realize that I'm not the typical downloader. Most people download the MP3s and then never buy the CD. And you know, I've downloaded plenty of MP3s and never bought the CD too, but those were crappy albums. If the music industry (and movie industry) would find a way to promote a "try-before-you-buy" service, they might actually make money on CDs (and DVDs). Then again, the record producers would have to first stop wasting millions of dollars on shitty artists who make super-shitty records. If people aren't buying CDs even when they like the album, then they sure as shit aren't gonna buy after they've tried it and it sucks.

Until there's a legal way to preview music and movies online, I'm going to continue to download them first, and then buy the really good CDs and DVDs when they come out, as I've been doing for years.

Anyway, Healthy In Paranoid Times is a damn good album. It's not my favorite Our Lady Peace album (I'd probably rank them in the order that they were released), but it's still rocking stuff (especially for a Canadian band ). And I'm glad I bought the CD because the booklet is pretty cool. It doesn't have the lyrics (), but it has a list of statistics of things that happened during the 1165 days it took to record the album and there's a list of recommended websites, several of them are sites that I already frequent (in BOLD).

TO BETTER YOUR HEALTH AND WELLBEING VISIT...

THINKEXIST.COM
ADBUSTERS.ORG (incorrectly listed as ADBUSTERS.COM in the booklet)
THEBROOKLYNRAIL.ORG
WARCHILD.CA
MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY.ORG
NERVENET.INFO
THEONION.COM
CORPWATCH.ORG
OTHERVOICES.ORG
KCRW.COM
ZMAG.ORG
AMNESTY.ORG
RELIEFWEB.INT
OXFAM.ORG
NRDC.ORG
GREENPEACE.ORG

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Current Mood:
Currently listening to: Healthy In Paranoid Times by Our Lady Peace (duh)