By way of an experiment… Recent music

Amazon Associates just released a blog widget that provides access to the samples for their inventory of MP3 music. I thought I’d use it to show you some of the music I’ve been adding to my collection. One track per album:

Click the play button to get things started; then you can browse the list of songs. Select a song to see the artist and album info.
I still buy the occasional physical CD, and there are a few things that I can only get at iTunes, but these days I’m buying most of my music from Amazon. It’s not just that I work for them (which I do), or that the prices are good (which they are). It’s mostly the convenience of browsing. The feature that lets you play all of the clips from an album is incredibly useful: that’s the main reason why I bought the first Chicago album, for example. Everybody knows the big hits – “Listen”, “I’m A Man” – even if you’ve only heard them at the start of a “Greatest Hits” collection. Anyway, I’d forgotten what an impressive album that first release was. I bought it when it first came out, along with the second Blood, Sweat & Tears album, and I was blown away by the aggressive fusion of jazz, rock, and blues.
Anyway, let’s see how this MP3 widget thing works. I might start using it for my “random 10” postings (which have fallen off recently – mea culpa).