Lost in iTunes Store

So, how many people get lost for hours walking through the iTunes store in the music section? I mean, you come in, search for a Song, Album, Artist and find it, but then start looking and clicking on the "Also bought" albums below? Last night I got on to get a Jeff Beck album (Emotion & Commotion) and found myself coming up for air some 3 hours (and dozens of albums sampled) later without getting anything.

No complaints here, I just love how you can move between genres and sample music you would have never found otherwise. Complain what you will about iTunes and bloat, but sometimes it is nice to get lost listening to new (to you) music and maybe finding a gem now and then.

For instance, when I was a kid and the show "Carl Sagan's Cosmos" was on, there was a soundtrack that went with it: "The Music of the Cosmos" which was done by Vangelis. My parents had a copy of the cassette. I loved the music, especially this one particular song. Well, I have not seen hide nor hair of this cassette for probably 20 years, maybe more. When I asked my parents where their copy went, cause they still have the case with insert in pristine condition, my dad said he thinks it got sold with one of his previous cars. I have been looking on many different websites for this album - which I don't think ever made it to CD. Checking out local used book/cd/dvd stores and even Amazon and CraigsList and Ebay.

Well, last night, I started with Jeff Beck and, 3 hours later, had surfed myself back in time to Vangelis' Alpha - the one song I had been looking for forever.

So, call iTunes what you will, it has helped me find some lost songs and allowed me to discover some great music just through the simple actions of clicking "Other users also bought" albums below the ones I have searched out.

And, Yes. I have a very diverse taste in music.

This is what I **LOVE** about iTunes. I used to have a circle of friends who turned me on to new stuff that they knew I would like, and I still have those friends and they still do that to a limited extent but we've all moved far away from each other and now the conversations are dominated by stuff like families and work etc.

So the iTunes Store is one of my best tools for discovering new bands based on what I like.

The best part is that iTunes is not the online software that can do this. There are so many sites that help you enlarge your music repertoire that it's getting really hard to be stucked with a few artists.