Think about this: when did In Rainbows come out? You wanna say “It was like six months ago,” right? Because all anyone still talks about is how the distribution method was supposedly fucking genius, right? Or maybe you never got sucked into the cesspool of exalting Thom Yorke for remembering that the internet exists, and you knew right after I asked that the album came out in 2007. Either way, we can all agree that everyone needs to get over the fact that technology affords us a shit-ton of ways to get music.
Apparently, however, Sony BMG isn’t on board with us. It basically goes like this: one day, one of those gift cards at a Safeway checkout stand got really fucked up and, feeling overconfident, managed to pick up a sexy iPod with inexplicably low self-esteem. Nine months later, she called him and said he was going to be a daddy. Their child’s name: Platinum MusicPass. Cute, huh? Unfortunately neither of them could afford a kid and decided to sell it to Sony BMG, which cloned it and is now distributing lots of Sony MusicPasses all over the Southeastern U.S. in Winn-Dixie supermarkets. $12.99 gets you a pass for a full-album download of high-quality MP3s (but are they FLAC rips?) plus bonus material in some instances. Highlights include Korn, Avril Lavigne, the previously mentioned Mr. Zimmerman, and a selection of decades-themed compilations.
Great job, Sony-BMG, you’re definitely not adding an unnecessary intermediary step between MP3 and consumer. And I’m pretty sure people are going to care about this one more than they did about Radiohead!
