saitti.org

Right, so I’m admitting to my ignorance here. I’m also mightily ticked off nobody mentioned Klicktrack to me before today.

I got an e-mail from a Swedish 80’s club, advertising their next event with a live performance by a Swedish synthpop band called Lip Service. Browsed the band’s MySpace page, listened to some of their songs and as I still love to buy music and support deserving artists, unlike so many of you bastards out there, I started looking for a place to buy their album from. And that’s how I found Klicktrack.

It’s pretty much like iTunes. Almost, but not quite. There’s one massive difference: Klicktrack does not believe in DRM. You read that right. Place a few albums in your cart, move to check out, pay with a credit card and you’re offered two choices: either download all the songs individually as MP3 files or as one zipped file containing MP3 files. No DRM, no arbitrary anti-consumer limitations, nothing. It’s like a breath of fresh air after record labels and legislators stuffing DRM down our throats.

Sure, Klicktrack’s not perfect. Lip Service’s album was encoded at 192kbps CBR, which is bordering on unacceptable. Klicktrack’s FAQ says: “Our MP3s have an average bit rate of around 200 kbps (mostly VBR)”. This one wasn’t, but that’s fine - for now.

The FAQ also says this: “In the future we might be selling other formats as well (AAC, ogg, FLAC, 24bit WAV/AIFF) if people are requesting that.” Guess what? I sent them an e-mail, requesting Lossless files. Fingers crossed.

Another difference compared to iTunes is the selection. Klicktrack’s library is miniscule compared to Apple’s, no doubt about it. But you know what? In 15 minutes I had found more stuff I want to buy than I ever did on iTunes! As I’m sure you know by now, I’m into synthpop and electropop. Klicktrack has oodles of both. Yay!

So there. I suggest you give Klicktrack a try or, at the very least, drop them an e-mail and request Lossless encodes.