The day that Macworld Boston wrapped up this summer, my cohort, Peter Cohen, and I drove to Mansfield, Mass., to catch the opening show of this year’s Ozzfest. Featuring acts like Zakk Wylde’s Black Label Society, Iron Maiden and, of course, the main attraction, Ozzy Osbourne teamed up with his old Black Sabbath cronies, it was a metal fan’s dream come true.
Being a longtime metal-head, I didn’t bother buying any music from the other bands at the show—I was going to see Ozzy and Zakk, so the others didn’t really matter to me. I wasn’t at the show very long before I knew Steve Jobs would be receiving a tidy little sum of money from me, courtesy of the iTunes Music Store, when I got home. Bands, one after the other, with very little time in between, jammed all day long on two stages. The more I listened, the more music I was going to buy.
So, thanks to the convenience of the iTunes Music Store, I came home, did a search for the bands and started buying music like crazy. My wife—who also likes Ozzy—just looked at me and walked away shaking her head.
I went from buying a couple of songs to buying an album, to buying multiple albums. If I went to Ozzfest a few years ago I would have needed to physically go to a store, with no option of previewing the music and buy what I thought might be good. Chances are I would have bought one or two CDs and listened to those for a while before even thinking about buying another. I can tell you, that is not what happened this time.
I ended up getting a lot of music that I wouldn’t have purchased otherwise, Apple got more money from me and the musicians made a little coin too—a win all the way around. (And I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention another positive aspect to the iTunes Music Store—it’s now accepting donations on behalf of the Red Cross for victims of Hurricane Katrina. You can get the details here.)