The album from which the Rachid Taha single comes, ZOOM, is released in Europe, and if you go to the YouTube page you’ll get iTunes link from which you can buy it. But as is often the case with music I like from other countries, I can’t actually do so. If I were buying the CD, which I may well do at some point, I could simply use my credit card and the internet, pay extra shipping charges, and take advantage of the borderless world of the internet to get the newest release by an artist I’ve been following for decades. There’s an Amazon link, too. Ironically, the digital store is more locked down.
Yes, I know there are ways around these restrictions such as proxies and such, but that’s not my point. I don’t want to have to result to those techniques in order to legally purchase music, just because the record label has decided it isn’t ready to distribute across the pond yet. And most people don’t know how to do take advantage of those methods yet. Make no bones about it, it’s a corporate decision to lock down distribution this way. The artists, with the possible exception of huge megastars, are usually just thrilled anyone at all is actually buying their music and paying full price for it. They love having fans wherever they are.
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Tag Archives: Rachid Taha
Why People Pirate Music
Bonjour CD
I regularly record Acousticfrom TV5 Monde on my DVR, and I just finished watching this week’s program with Rachid Taha. I’m a big fan of Taha and on the episode he sang some songs from a new album called Bonjour. They weren’t the best songs he ever recorded, but I liked them and I want the CD. I have all Taha’s records, and I want this one, too.
So I set out looking for it. The first place I looked was iTunes. I’m always ambivalent about albums on iTunes, though I buy most of my music there. I like the instant gratification. I can also find stuff that’s hard to find in stores. As record stores disappear, its not easy to find anything but the biggest hits in retailers like BestBuy, Barnes&Noble or Borders. On the other hand, I like having all that information the downloads don’t provide but that usually comes in a CD: names of composers and lyricists, producers and members of the band, information about where and when something was recorded, anecdotes from the sessions, photographs and all that stuff you usually find in the liner notes that accompany a CD. But it wasn’t in iTunes, anyway. Continue reading