TESTING THE NEW AUDIO PARADIGM

A couple of years ago I embarked upon the rendering of all my CDs into lossless FLAC files on my iMac in order to enjoy music at high quality with all the convenience of a non-physical digital remote-controlled library.

I'd practically given up on iTunes completely. At the same time, for music on the go, I started to subscribe to Amazon's cloud service, so I could stream my music over my iPhone.

Now, however, I'm back using iTunes all the time, both at home and on my mobile devices. I'm not even playing FLACs any more.

So what happened?

Apple Music. When it was announced earlier this year I decided to have a look, since the first three months were free, and I found I immediately liked the interface. Cool too, was the ability to explore and discover new artists, helped enormously by the very well-crafted playlists Apple would send me. When the three months expired, I decided to continue, since the price was not too extortionate.

I mean, sitting by the river, drinking beer with friends and suddenly having the ability to call up Rock Lobster by the B52's when it came up in conversation was somehow such a wonderful thing.

I also switched from Amazon's increasingly irritating cloud service and signed up for iTunes
Match to consolidate my music collection.

Now comes the moment of truth: can I fully embrace this new model? Two albums were released recently that I would normally have bought on CD. Instead, I'm enjoying them streamed. After all, when I really think about it, following the initial burst of interest in a new album, it frequently disappears into my collection, rarely to get an airing again. So the new paradigm makes sense.

What doesn't make sense is the nagging doubt caused by the fact that when or if I stop subscribing to Apple Music, those albums will vanish. That goes against my collecting and hoarding instincts. Also, I'm now locked into comparatively poor quality audio again. 256kbps is fine for your mobile devices, but at home it certainly sounds far worse than my FLACS.

On the other hand, I don't want to have to switch between players at home every time I want to play something I actually own, rather than stream something I merely lease, so that means I'm stuck with the iTunes Player.

There is also the concern that artists aren't getting enough money out of this, and that bothers me, since I mostly listen to lesser-known musicians who you can bet aren't making much of a living out of their craft.

It will be interesting to see how it goes. I may return to my previous mode of owning the music I enjoy; at least Apple Music with its monthly subscription is easy enough to halt, and having iTunes Match too means I can continue to have my collection in the cloud for mobile listening.

For the first time, however, I can totally understand how this new paradigm is perfect for young people with an ephemeral and limited collection. It provides them not only with affordable convenience, but also allows limitless exploration. It's an embarrassment of riches, really, and it's amazing they don't get overwhelming by the sheer amount of stuff out there.

All in all, I have to admit that my initial skepticism with regard to streaming music services has given way to a new excitement, and a realisation of its true potential.