Starting over, musically

And doesn't the ICloud's system of replacing songs with their ITunes version make it possible to effectively launder mp3's into official ITunes songs? I know that was the gist of a story I was reading a few months ago.

 

Exactly - if you are going to start over start with the classics and build from there.
You have a kid now and need to become more discerning in your music tastes.
That said I would highly recommend Niggas in Paris.

 

I find Amazon Cloud to be flawless and a lot less intrusive than I Tunes. Works perfectly on my Android phone.

 

I'm posting suggestions chronologically, beginning in 1685.

So I'll get to my Jay-Z and Kanye recommendations in June of 2016.

 

I have an MP3 player that is not compatible with iTunes, so does anyone know of a good site where I can buy songs in the correct format? Amazon?

And if you're starting fresh, Ten should be the first album you download.

 

As middle aged people dump their CDs in favor of digital music (a process younger people went through about a decade ago), I fatten up my collection (34 gigs and counting!) by going to some antique stores and used music stores. You can find some really great albums for a buck or two. Also, you'd be amazed at some of the selection a local library has to rip and get into your collection. Especially if you want to get a solid base of classical music.

If you're near a university library, you likely can get almost any great album from the last 50 years in any genre to rip for free, too. Being in college at the start of the digital revolution, I always found it funny that people were bragging they got all their music for free...in a tinny, loss-filled format...when they could've strolled down to the media library and checked out the same album, ripped it to a lossless format for free, as well.

There's no way I could afford Bob Dylan's voluminous catalog. Ripped the whole freaking thing in three days my freshman year of college.

You can build a great collection of music for very little money without using downloading sites. And the quality of the sound is much better when you rip instead of download, too.

I stilll use ITunes for new music I can't find (I live in the middle of a cornfield...so no independent music stores for me), but otherwise anything recorded before 2001 can be found.

 

It's funny you say that because I'm in the process of ripping all of my old CDs (of which And Justice for All .. and Load are a part of. And I think Load is a very underrated Metallica album) to put onto the MP3 player. The library idea is a great one ... I don't think I've been to a public library in at least a decade.

 

I like the Amazon store a lot more than the iTunes store. Better prices, slightly better quality and pretty much the same selection.

 

About a year ago, I went through my CD collection and ripped all of the ones I didn't really listen to that much anymore. Turned around and sold them for a nice chunk of change. I figured the window for being able to sell CDs for something resembling good value is rapidly closing.

 

If you're on a budget and starting from scratch, you should definitely check out the 69 cent songs on iTunes. There's some good stuff there, from a variety of genres, and they change the selection pretty often.
They also make a few songs available for free every week. More miss than hit on those, but it's a good way to sample some new bands or pick up something you might like just for the hell of it.

 

Starman's just pissed that he had to replace all of his 8-tracks for those newfangled cassettes. Look what happened to them!

 

Load is the most boring, least creative, most straightforward Metallica album. I'd rather listen to St. Anger. OK, I guess it's probably better than the new one with Lou Reed, but at least that's interesting in concept.