Other Sites
There's quite a bit of Them available on the iTunes Music Store. When the iTMS first opened, I recall seeing Flood on the alternative section's Top Downloads for weeks. The band has also recently been given its own artist page.
But everyone's favorite two Johns from Brooklyn aren't just hawking their songs through Apple. They've also set up their own music store They Might Be Downloads.com, selling tracks for 99 cents a piece ($9.99 for albums, $4.99 for an EP) as MP3s. Users have to create a login, pay for the tracks via Visa/MasterCard, and then have 24 hours to download their tracks. Being MP3s, the tracks have no Digital Rights Management software installed on them. The band's FAQ has this to say:
It took a leap of faith on our part to offer files as MP3s, but we chose to do it in the interest of our fans. Now we're trusting you not to trade or share these songs. It's just not cool.
Site Review
Content-wise the store is a bit thin on albums. Currently, there are only two studio albums (the new album The Spine and No!, a record for children), an EP in support of the new album (The Spine Surfs Alone), a rarities collection (They Got Lost), and one exclusive song (Love is Eternity). Only a few songs have samples you can listen to before purchasing the album, and with the exception of the the EP and the exclusive single, all of the material is available elsewhere.
Where the store really shines though, is in its live concert section. The Giants are selling city-by-city recordings of their latest tour.
While most bands after twenty or so years or so settle for competent, controlled performances, They Might Be Giants will never compromise their semi-pro status-John, John, Dan, Danny and Marty live their live shows out on the rock’n’roll tightrope blindfolded without a net or, apparently, adequate rehearsal. The number of these recordings will grow and grow, and hopefully we’ll be able to release some vintage shows of interest. We recorded these shows using a mix of the board and the audience into a Digital Multi Track. What your getting is the whole show, warts and all, at the best quality we can do.
So, what you get here is the entire TMBG live show, broken up into eatable mp3 segments. (encoded @ 256kbps CBR Lame) We're really going for the whole experience so we try not to edit, sometimes we take away excessive crowd noise or a song that's a real clunker, but those are rare occasions. When you download the show we've made a PDF of the Flan's set list and used that as the liner notes.
For the obsessive completist, the fan who missed the live show or wants a memory of the one they caught, this is a great option. The live shows are so different from their studio work (it's almost like performance art), TMBG have created an exclusive live album of from those shows for the iTMS (which--hey hey--has samples to which you can listen).
Customer Experience
Users have to create a login identity, and pay with a Visa or Mastercard. Once the songs are purchased, you have 24 hours to download your songs, and can have your browser download them singly, or all at once.
The entire process, from registration to beginning the downloads, took about fifteen minutes, and was quick and painless. I also downloaded the album art for The Spine and The Spine Surfs Alone in PDF format, suitable for creating a burned CD. The only annoyance was that having selected the option of downloading everything at once, my browser (Firefox 0.8) kept interrupting me for every song to ask if I wanted to save it, or open it with iTunes (though this is not, obviously, a flaw with the store). The sound quality on the studio tracks is sharp, though on some tracks it seems the band does intentionally weird things with their mixing (altering the equalizer on "Experimental Film" improves it greatly, removing the flatness that's not present on the rest of the songs. But then I have to wonder, in a song about avante garde student filmmakers, did they do that on purpose? This is the kind of mental gymnastics you don't have to do if you're a fan of say, OXO). But I digress.
The big drawback for some will be that only a handful of songs have sample tracks. But given TMBG's cultish following, that's something of a reduced risk. If they release an album, I know I'm going to buy the whole thing. The band might call one track a "single," but since I'm unlikely to hear it on the radio, it's just the catchiest song on the album to me. Also, since so much of the material is available on iTunes, you could listen to the sample tracks available there.
So, whether you're a hardcore fan of songs about our 11th President, or you're desperately waiting for those one guys with the Birdhouse song to be on Bands Reunited, They Might Be Downloads has something for you. All of the music will, of course, play on any digitial music jukebox that works with MP3s (which includes the iPod, despite what the people at Slashdot might think).
Of course, the iTunes Music Store has a lot more of their stuff available, but:
When you buy songs from They Might Be Downloads, you're buying them straight from the band. They're the people who, coincidentally, happened to make the music. You're cutting out the middle man. Middle men (or middle persons) aren't necessarily bad; we just thought we'd give it a go without them. We're just old fashioned. So, give it a try. See how it feels to buy a song directly from the band.
Oh, and "Thunderbird" is a killer track.
Bill's been using Macs since the late 80s. When he's not making smartass remarks to amuse Kirk Hiner, he enjoys fighting for the user.
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