Virtual possession

This past summer I purchased V-Ray for Rhino directly from the programmers, and the software was delivered not through the mail, but through the internet. Not having any physical manifestation of the product seems a natural fit for such a small, easily downloadable program. This week, however, I took the plunge and purchased my first music download, and I remain far from convinced that music fits the model nearly so well.

Saul Williams's The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! was released online on Thursday, and unlike Radiohead's In Rainbows, no CD release has been forecasted. The lowest quality MP3s are available for free, and higher quality MP3 and FLAC versions are available for $5. Ever the archivist and wannabe audiophile, I opted for the FLAC files, and made my own (LAME-encoded) MP3s for convenient listening.

The music is great, and I like having the liner notes as a PDF, but having to keep the massive FLAC files in a safe, easy-to-find place on one of my many hard drives is a nuisance that I'm having trouble getting past. I can always back up my CDs if I want, but I can't make a nice physical manifestation that will always be easy to find. (A pile of CD-Rs with labels in Sharpie is probably even worse than a folder in Windows.) At this point, I think I'd much rather have paid five more dollars and gotten an object that I could add to my library.

Platforms and packaging aside, I'm very impressed by the music. Like Rage Against The Machine's The Battle of Los Angeles, this is a work that feeds off of rap, rock, and hip-hop and uses each wisely. Williams and producer Trent Reznor know just how much thump to put into each track and how to shift between slam and song without losing the thread that keeps it together. All of rap's familiar profanities are here, but they seem purposeful. The recently buried n-word is featured prominently in many songs, but always as a reflection of a prejudiced world and never as a mere nickname as Lil' Jon and so many others are wont to do. It's all around quite good, and it's available for free. Give it a listen.