News

As Jon Iverson points out in another posting this week, a surprising number of readers expect downloads to be a viable music acquisition option in the very near future. Perhaps it's closer than we think.

The Grateful Dead's official online store now offers downloads. That in itself is not too startling, but here's the part that is: In addition to offering printable booklet and CD tray art, the site offers consumers a choice of download formats, including 128kbps MP3 (various prices, depending on length), 256kbps MP3 (around 50–76¢ more), and lossless FLAC files (usually a few bucks more).

The site is currently offering the first 33 volumes of the band's Dick's Picks series of complete concerts and its "Vault Releases," but the band has always been very savvy about promoting (and benefiting from) its four-decade (and still going) musical legacy. It will be interesting to see if any of the group's "official" recordings follow.

Another music service that offers downloadable liner notes and a choice of either MP3 or FLAC files is Smithsonian Folkways, which makes available a phenomenal variety of world music at 99¢ per song. Even better, there's no DRM, and royalties find their way to the original artists (not always the case with ethnographic recordings).

If, like me, you've got a weakness for mbira, kora, and quena, the Smithsonian site could become an expensive addiction.

If you'd rather buy physical discs (and many readers would, according to our recent survey), there's worldmusicstore.com, a site that carries the Smithsonian Folkways discs, as well as more than 12,000 other world music and folk recordings. Worldmusicstore.com isn't new, but it seems comprehensive and convenient—and record stores that carry this type of material are getting fewer and further between. Besides, any place that keeps Saldanha Rolim's Forro For All CD in stock is the kind of place I want to do business with!