But there’s a big fat point
That you seem to be missing
And it’s driving you to distraction
That doesn’t seem
To stop you in the least
Or halt this obsession
That’s got you goin’ back
Week after week
Day after day
Hour after hour
From where you came
For more of the same

I got Amazon credit for using their service.  Not to buy music, but electronic gifts.  I ended up with $8.00 worth of MP3s. They expire on 1/31, so I decided to redeem them.  They were supposed to be free, so why did Amazon ask for my credit card?  I e-mailed the service, the response that came back is just as vague as the original e-mail gifting this credit to me.  You mean I’m supposed to say I’m paying, but then when I go to check out you’re going to tell me it’s all been a mistake and not charge me?  So I can end up getting charged and have an incomprehensible conversation with someone named "David" in Bangalore?

No thanks.

But I still wanted that one track.  The one I’d searched for for almost a decade, that was completely unavailable.  It was unstealable.  And unbuyable.  It was too obscure.

But not in my mind.

In the seventies, KROQ was a free format station, playing Deaf School, whatever the deejays fancied.  Then the late Rick Carroll took over and formatted it into the "Roq of the 80’s".  It was Top Forty.  Just bizarre, scatological and English hip.  KROQ put KMET out of business going on "Tainted Love" and "Don’t You Want Me", tracks the station down the dial wouldn’t dare play next to Molly Hatchet and Boston.  But it wasn’t only the big hits, not even only the English hits like Depeche Mode’s "Just Can’t Get Enough", there were tracks that only KROQ played, that were hits if you listened to the station and were unknown if you lived out of town or didn’t turn the dial all the way to 106.7.  Like Toni Basil’s "You Gotta Problem".  I haven’t heard it in eons.  But it’s in my DNA.  I wanted to hear it again.  I was going to "buy" it from Amazon.  Now, no way.  I was frustrated.

Actually, the real name is not "You Gotta Problem".  That’s what Toni Basil labeled her cover.  The original is entitled "Pity You".  It’s by Devo.

The Akron band peaked with "Whip It".  How do you follow up a novelty hit that becomes a cultural institution, an MTV staple?

You can’t.  "New Traditionalists" tanked.  You might hear "Beautiful World" in commercials thirty years later, but it didn’t get airplay back then.  Nor did the truly classic "Love Without Anger".  And "Pity You".  "New Traditionalists" is uneven, but when it peaks, it TRANSCENDS!

I didn’t even know "You Gotta Problem" was a Devo number.  But when I found out, I bought "New Traditionalists".  I love it.  Stole every MP3 early in my P2P career.  But I still could not find Toni Basil’s cover.  Which I remembered as being even more dynamic, even more explosive.

It’s not.  I now know.  Because having abandoned Amazon, I was inspired to fire up my Sonos system, to search Rhapsody.  If Amazon was selling it, then it was available to stream, right?

Actually, not everything is.  I wanted to listen to Simon & Garfunkel the other day and found their albums absent from Rhapsody (they are on Napster.)  Is Paul Simon that out of it?  Has Rob Glaser’s company run out of money to license?  But most is.  Like Toni Basil’s "You Gotta Problem".

Sonos with Napster/Rhapsody is like the original Napster.  Once you’ve got it, you realize how great it is.  And what makes it so great is the iPhone/iPod Touch integration.  It makes the whole thing workable.  You get an inspiration to hear something, and then, almost instantly, YOU DO!  I’ve got the system hooked up in every room in my house, it’s like living in my own club, the sound envelops my whole domain.

You can’t take it with you.  Not easily, the hand-held Rhapsody player sucks.  But if you’re home, you’re in heaven. You no longer need to own the track.  Why spend the time searching, why spend the money?

America was a nation of renters, then the movie industry taught them to buy.  That’s what happened in the DVD world. Can’t the opposite happen in the music world?  Can’t everybody become a renter?

Truth is, they will.  If you came to my house right now, I could sell you Sonos with streaming, straight from the pipe, no computer required, instantly.  Maybe that’s what I should do.  Stock up with equipment, make money marking it up and selling it to you.  It’s just that fucking good.  So good, that this is where we’re going to end up.  Probably when Apple sells a subscription service, tethered to the iPhone.  It’s just a matter of when.

But it’s not now.

But it will be.

So lower the price of downloads.  Almost give them away.  License P2P.  Because in the not far distant future, no one will bother owning anything.  It won’t be worth the effort.