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The Power of the Apple Music/iTunes Combo

Are we losing our freedom to digital streaming?

By Lauren CottrellPublished 5 years ago 4 min read
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Apple’s plan to shut down iTunes provoked a mixed response on twitter, from users worried about the value of their purchases on the soon to be defunct store, to those nostalgic for the start of the music industry’s digital reign. The news got me thinking about the impact it has had on my music tastes.

Being born in the late 90s, I had some nursery rhyme cassette tapes, and I remember my Dad’s car having a tape player, but most of my music was on CDs.

When I was 12 my uncle bought me an iPod touch for my birthday, and helped me to set up an apple account, so I could start my itunes library. Though I made the odd digital purchase, ("Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis, obviously), my library was largely built using albums from my own CD collection, as well as those of my parents’. The desire to fill up my iPod with music made me more inclined to listen to other CDs in my home, which introduced me to artists like Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.

Despite my digital music store, I made a conscious effort to continue to buy physical albums, mainly from HMVs two for £10 selection and charity shops. This attitude certainly did not stem from a concern about the meaning of ownership in a digital age, (again I was 12), but was more to do with being able to leaf through the photos in the lyric booklet, take a selection of music on long car journeys (pre USB ports in most cars), and in the case of Aaliyah’s "Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number," and Britney Spears’ "Baby One More Time," getting a tasty piece of décor in the guise of a 90s poster. Although, it is plausible that something of the seeming impermanence of a digital library had also struck a chord in my preteen person.

When I was around 14, something vague, but destructive happened to the household computer and my music library was lost. It took a long time to rebuild my collection, as it involved inserting each individual album into the disc player of my computer, but I was able to—my CDs acted as tangible back up of files. Having only used the iTunes store to buy singles, and not having bought too many of them, I didn’t lose much money, but the incident cemented my decision to continue to buy physical albums. It showed me that my digital purchases did not mean ownership in the same way that my CD collection did. There were other ways in which iTunes proved itself to be less than ideal: it had no record of specific albums (again I mention "Baby One More Time"—one of the most successful debut albums ever, which the UK iTunes did not recognise), iTunes match didn’t always work, and there were often problems when it came to syncing your device.

The summer of 2015 saw Apple Music launch as a kind of joint platform with iTunes, enabling the user to retain previous purchases and physical uploads, whilst providing the opportunity to add to it by streaming and downloading. Since its opening, I have bought fewer physical albums, but being able to trial an album before buying or downloading it has given me more freedom to experiment with my tastes, not needing to repeat the disappointment of Jessie J’s debut album after the triumphant single "Do it like a Dude." Over the last few years Apple has also made it more difficult to upload albums from CD to a digital library by excluding the CD rom feature from their newest laptops. Should you wish to burn your CDs, or play your DVDs, you must buy a separate disc player, not terribly expensive, but inconvenient enough to dissuade the user from doing so. Through these decisions, the customer has lost a lot of the power they had, forced into going along with the developments Apple made. However, this period has been my favourite—although I had to buy a separate disc player, I have had the satisfaction of uploading CDs, and continuing to curate my library, whilst also being able to listen to a wider range of music through streaming. The original merger of Apple Music with iTunes allowed the user to retain control over the purchasing of music, in a way that the replacement streaming service will not.

For me the satisfaction of ownership, and being able to use a physical collection as the basis for a digital one, can’t be outweighed by the possibility of money saving. It's difficult to calculate how much I am saving as I am now billed per month, whereas I used to buy albums with money I received for my birthday or Christmas. However, I think I am more worried by the stark example of the power that large corporations like Apple have over our spending. I will miss iTunes, because I’m sentimental, but also because during the few years it was a part of Apple Music it gave freedom to the user to create a digital library in the way best suited to them.

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About the Creator

Lauren Cottrell

@lozcotz_

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