iTunes: As Prosperous as the Car Industry

Recently, my father came up to me and asked me how to work iTunes. As a music lover, he has thousands of CDs piled high in storage units and cases. I was honesty quite surprised at his approach because, all his life, I've always seen him happiest when he could say, "Hey boys, I found this old CD, let's pop it in" or "this is what good music sounded like." I never thought he'd give up the CD age, but, lo and behold, I spent about 2 hours explaining to him the workings of iTunes and iPods. He was fascinated by the complexity of iTunes; it doesn't leave anything out of its arsenal. You can add any pictures you want to any song when it comes up, order it however you want, and store thousands of songs all in one easily accessible place. I guess it goes to show how our generation takes such things for granted. Yesterday, he told me he's uploaded about a tenth of his collection, 860 songs roughly. He's having a great time figuring all the stuff out and is about ready to get a 64GB iPod Touch.

iTunes has grown so much in the past couple years, it's impossible to measure. The application is drawing in every audience, even across age borders. Heck, if my dad has finally started using it, sooner or later, seniors will be using it to for the oldies. I just wonder how it'll be in 60 years, when iTunes is used by everyone of our age; what will be the new thing? Will music be immediately transported into one's head for easy listening? It'll be a sight to see for our generation, just as iTunes is for the past generation.

For a long time, I believed iTunes was used by all artists, as it is an easy way to get one's music known and out there in the public. But apparently, several bands, like Tool, will not "sell out to the man," by putting their music on the application. Apparently, to some popular bands, iTunes is seen as selling out. Some just prefer the CDs I guess, because I don't know how iTunes could be considered selling out. It's still all about the music; I guess some bands just believe their music should be listened to by people that truly appreciate the music rather than listen to it spontaneously. The band Tool seeks privacy, only really spreading music on the radio, rather than using iTunes.

I, for one, avidly use iTunes and all its benefits, such as Genius, which gives you song selections based on your likes. I truly love getting iTunes gift cards for gifts because that means I'll have no problem getting some new songs off the internet, hassle free. I can't wait to see what iTunes comes out with in the future.