Monday 6 December 2004

Cheaper music? Blame Canada!

Not that I'll ever buy anything from iTunes - just wanted to make that clear - but if I was, I gotta say I'm glad I have a Canadian billing address at my disposal.

It seems that the cheapest place on earth (or earth as defined to where iTunes have their music shops) to buy music is Canada, where Apple have decided to price their tunes at 99c Canadian. Using the powers of exchange rate mathematics, Silicon.com have worked out how cheap it would be to fill your iPod in Canada as compared to the rest of the world.

With a Canadian dollar currently worth around 43p in the UK, you start to realise how rediculously cheap music can be in the Great White North, eh? When whole albums are $10.00 you're looking at a heft £4.30 for the same thing that HMV is charging £16.99 for.

Now I'm not a fan or a backer or even a buyer of DRM infected crap like these iTunes files, and I don't suggest anyone else do so, but it's nice to see Canada painted so highly in a news story. We always knew music over there was cheap as chips, now we've got further proof.

Celebrate the pursuits

Having been directed there, I've been perusing the blog called Music Is A Virus. For all intents and purposes they seem to exist solely to turn people on to new music - albeit long forgotten music, but new to most people.

In my search, among the Curve and Ned's Atomic Dustbin entries, I can across one for Canada's highly underrated cult act The Pursuit Of Happiness.

These guys are - or were - bloody brilliant and "Love Junk" was a cracker of a debut album, followed up quickly by the sex-soaked "One Sided Story" (I offer the lyrics to "Food" as way of justifying my claim).

The Music Is A Virus blog offers a taster MP3 for each album/act they feature and the track on offer for "Love Junk" is the band's debut single "I'm An Adult Now", an ode to not wanting to get old but accepting the fate and age that life throws at us.

A site like this is what the internet is all about, creating awareness of the oft overlooked and in the Canadian music, that can be quite a bit.

As a prominent Canadian once said, "Don't judge us by Alanis, Celine and Bryan Adams. We actually produce good music as well."

Update: I offer, as way of example, the track "Lovers In A Dangerous Time" by Bruce Cockburn as an overlooked Canadian classic from 1984.