Radically Searching

It's been a while since I've done a short experiment to see just how easy it is to get hold of a particular track and therefore whether I have enough of a disincentive not to download a song “illegally”. Let's clarify before we start, I don't believe getting hold of music from illicit sources is always the best or even the correct thing to do. If something is available legitimately then you should obtain it through those means. The DRM crippled files that are foisted on us by online services are a huge pain in the backside, but given that all it takes is a quick burn off to a rewritable CD and then a rip back to mp3 to wma status under your own terms, this is a minor inconvenience if you have enough foresight.

I've now got to find a new example to play with as the problems with my last source of frustration – 'Go Away' by Gloria Estefan appear to have now been resolved and it is possible to purchase the track as a standalone rather than having to buy the entire album (as used to be the case on Napster) or worse, not being able to buy it at all (iTunes).

So let's go with another song that is hardly obscure but which for some reason I've never managed to get hold of a copy of, even back in the halcyon days when Audiogalaxy was so comprehensive I was able to track down b-sides of singles I'd owned 20 years earlier. The track in question is 'Radical Your Lover' by the Little Angels. A minor Top 40 hit in 1990, I'd always had a soft spot for the song, thanks to the fact that like so many of their earlier singles they featured Dave Kemp and Grant Kirkhope, aka The Big Bad Horns. Sticking brass on a rock song is one of my favourite little production tricks and to me, 'Radical Your Lover' was the natural successor to 'Dude (Looks Like A Lady') which uses the same trick.

So let's have a go and see if it is available. I use Napster primarily for my online purchases, simply because I'm not an iPod man and so most of the functionality of iTunes is lost on me. So off we go searching and Napster serves up its entire Little Angels catalogue.

Two songs.

They are “Too Much Too Young” and “Womankind”, both there thanks to their presence on a couple of compilations. Their entire recorded output (three albums and a hits collection) are nowhere to be seen. So let's try iTunes instead. Same story sadly. The two aforementioned songs are online but only because they appeared once upon a time on a “True Rock” box set. Of their albums you will find none. Go to one of the lesser known stores such as 7Digital and it is even worse, they don't even have a single one of their songs.

So what choice do I have? I've heard/remembered/been told about this song and want to hand over some money and pay to own a copy. I've now got to risk incurring the wrath of the copyright police and go down a less brightly lit route. So off to allofmp3.com I go. I must admit I prefer using this for music sampling as you get to listen to 90 seconds of a track rather than the stingy 30 on Napster and iTunes. Their business model is also far and away the most sensible, pay per megabyte rather than per song. That way if I want a lower quality copy of a track to squeeze as much as possible on my 512MB player I have the choice and can save money at the same time. Add in the absence of DRM on the tracks you get served, the option to have them in whatever format you want and you have a site that gives you as a consumer just about everything you can wish for.

The rather shameful way the credit card companies caved in to political pressure and stopped supporting the site means that actually paying for anything on it requires numerous hoops to be jumped through at the moment. Fortunately I credited my account there with $20 last summer while it was still relatively easy to do and with the prices they charge (plus my own moral code of only using it for songs I can't get anywhere else) I've barely made a dent in it.

A quick search later and joy of joys, the Russians have done it again. They have two albums listed, 1992s 'Jam' and best of all the 1994 hits collection 'A Little Of The Past'. Inside the latter is my holy grail, 'Radical Your Lover'. A quick listen to the preview demonstrates that it still has the energy it did back in the summer of 1990 when it soundtracked my summer holiday that year. A few clicks later and the file is nicely encoded at 192kbs (I'm not stingy) and is swiftly downloaded to my computer.

Now if any of the band or their friends happen to read this, then I apologise to them for not buying it from the UK and thus ensuring they received their due royalties from my purchase. Believe me I would have done so had I had the choice. In my defence I did the next most honourable thing, going to an overseas site which insists it pays its way and holds a valid licence. Until proved otherwise I've no reason to doubt them and it means that buying through allofmp3.com is more moral than firing up Limewire or suchlike and downloading a dodgy copy from some student in Winsconsin.

Given that I can go online and buy via Napster the entire recorded output of obscure 70s easy listening star Harpo it seems baffling that I can't similarly buy a song from a well known 1990s rock band from North Yorkshire, so I'm sorry music industry, if I can't find what I want in an "approved" place and there is an alternative available to me, particularly one which doesn't place arbitrary restrictions on where and how I can play my new acquisition, I'm going to use it.

As for the song, well age hasn't been all that kind to the production and somehow it isn't as beefy as I remembered, but the minute the horns kick in and dovetail with Jimmy Dickinson's blues piano line I'm reminded just why I'd been searching for a copy for so many years in the first place. I'm like a train...