They got me!

I wrote a few weeks ago about Andrews iPod[^] little imagining at the time that I was soon to join the ranks of those who pay for music downloads.

It happened as a result of ripping a Delius CD to the PC. If you're familiar with Windows Media Player (hereinafter to be referred to as WMP) version 10 you know that when you rip a CD the next step is to hit the 'Find Album Info' button, which downloads the track listings (if the CD is known to MSN) and the album cover art. Nice freebie and I'm much impressed, not so much at the technology, which is trivial, but at the realisation that someone actually thought to do it :-) I'm easily pleased sometimes.

Once you've done the 'Find Album Info' thang it's tempting to click on the 'View Album Info' button which is a misleading name. That button leads you to a web page hosted within WMP which attempts to seduce you into buying music downloads!

Bloody thing worked didn't it! For what did I see listed as available for download for a mere US$1.98? Nothing less than Havergal Brian's[^] First Symphony 'The Gothic' which just happens to be a work I read about in The Gramophone Magazine[^] about 34 years ago. That was way before the CD era and all I could do was read about a piece of music. I searched record shops for a couple of years before giving up.

I'd completely forgotten about the symphony when I clicked on 'View Album Info' but I reckon it took rather less than a second for the memories to come flooding back once I saw the name.

It's a 2 CD set, just 8 minutes shy of 2 hours of wonderful music and an absolute bargain for $1.98 even if it is DRM'ed. It's been a while since I've enjoyed a new symphony as much as I enjoyed this one!

So I've become a music junkie again. I can think of worse things to become!