Michael Lee's Train of Thought

I realized one thing that I'd really like to see in connection to services like the iTunes store. There is a class of artist where I don't just want the songs, but I want the physical artifact of a CD with a booklet. And in the case of Marillion's Somewhere Else CD, it's not scheduled to ship from Amazon (where I have it pre-ordered) for a few weeks, but it is already available on iTunes.

What I'd like to be able to do is get the best of both worlds -- an immediate download of the album, but then get the physical CD (with documentation) at some later point in time as both a physical artifact and collectible, as well as the backup. But I'm not really willing to buy the album twice -- but I might be willing to pay a dollar or two more for the instant gratification of getting the album on my computer.

And I could even see this work as a successful double marketing campaign -- the album could go to iTunes (or some other service) as a download, and the physical CD comes a month or so later. It could cost more than a traditional download, and for that matter more than a traditional CD -- but not twice as much.

Labels: itunes, music