So IMRO finally gave in. About time too. Josh Ritter is American, but he might aswell be Irish as the amount of business he does here. Not surprised at the lack of Irish acts, itunes is run from America (notice how they get American releases quicker, so you can hear 30 second clips of albums that won't be on these shores for a while longer) and even Britain wouldn't recognise alot of Irish acts. In time, they will creep in there.

Have just checked out I-Tunes and man, the choice of country music is AMAZING. All these tracks on records I once had to pay top dollar for in HMV, Tower or via Amazon. And you can cherrypick what y'all want. Steve Jobs, I thank you.... ...Oh wait, I have to pony up 600 lids for anything with decent storage and a set of speakers, and I can't play what I download on anything else ? Scratch that.

I think its brillant and have been browsing in the music store ever since it was up and running. Now I can buy songs, for only 99 cents. Fair deal I think. And it can then go straight onto the ipod, genius!!! All of the rare Eps, AOL sessions and pre-releases are what should be available in the shops.

hah, the dudley corporation are in there. not sure that we're entirely meant to be, but if you're not in you can't win, i suppose!

I'm sure if I gave it more thought I could do a piece on the corporate piggery of it all, of having to pay 99c for each song and ending with nothing tangible in your possession other than an easily destroyed computer file, or the fact that it very much denies struggling, unknown artists a chance of a leg up in the industry by pricing them out of the market. If I really, really cared I could mention that while it is a beautiful and almost essential companion to our beloved Pods it has thus far failed Irish artists ( Other than Recording Heavyweights ) and despite what we may think, is unlikely to ever include the vast majority of popular Irish artists due to a minimum sale clause of whatever. ( Remember, Tower records will stock your album if it sells only 2 copies, I imagine iTunes having a slightly higher base?? ), so don't expect to find Connect Four or even Kittser knocking around for a while yet. The Argument is tired, but illegal download sites have provided more help for a lot of bands than most people think, yet they're illegal. The compromise isn't really a compromise at all. 'Yes, you can download. However, the choice is drastically less and the price drastically more' !!.. Now, I'm not a vocal supported of warez or anything like that. I spent ages on iTunes the other night salivating at the U2 rarities of Modest Mouse albums I don't own and was genuinely excited at being able to get them in this proven quality, legitimate way. But, the very fact is I wouldn't be downloading Modest Mouse from Apple if I hadn't of originally downloaded them ( Many Moons ago ) on Audiogalaxy ( The original one ) .. Anyway, anyone know of the legitimacy and legal statue of that Russian MP3 site that does whole albums for 50c.. I saw it on Boards.ie and before everyone loses their hair about ' Bold' sites , this one may well be legit.. However, I'm still not mentioning the name.

thing is though, the (VG) dudley corporation are on there. they don't sell an incredible amount of stuff, either. so? does anyone actually KNOW officially how many you'd have to sell? and what does 'imro finally gave in' mean? were they against it?