I Can Buy Music Now

I've been waiting a long time(years) to be able to purchase music digitally. From the time I learnt of iTunes, I kept wishing, hoping, and praying something like that would come to my little island Barbados. It is much cheaper than purchasing a physical album, especially here in Barbados where a new physical album starts at $60 average. Compare that to the $20 I would have to pay on iTunes and I just couldn't wait for that service or something similar to come along.

There was a short glimmer of hope when Amazon started selling digital albums, but alas, they wouldn't sell to my country. A few years went by and none of the two started selling music to Barbados.

I kept on waiting, a lot of this time I was on the dark side of music collection. It was great, but there was always a feeling I had about it that I didn't like until one day, I just decided to leave the dark side for good. I deleted all of my collection and did without. It was hard at first but youtube and the internet helped me through most of the time. I bought a couple albums on sale but not that many and I did slip for one or two songs but since crossing over from the dark side,  it has been less than 20 and this is over a few years.

Getting back to the present, whenever the iPhone 4 launched a couple years back, it also launched here in Barbados officially and with it came the app store. My hope was back and I thought that meant I would be able to buy music. I downloaded and installed iTunes to find out harshly that only the app store was available to Barbados and music, movies and all the other goodies were not. I was torn but since the app store was here, I kept my hope up knowing that they would sooner or later start selling music.

I kept checking the website periodically watching to see if music was available. Sometime last month, something happened that made me check and I got the shock of my life. Music was available for purchase in Barbados. I felt an explosion of joy that night, it was already past midnight and I should have been sleeping but I was so excited. Even though my entertainment budget was spent for that month, I still went ahead and purchased my first, official album. That was $20 well spent and something I waited a very long time to do.

What I then realized was that iTunes opened a very dangerous bucket for me; but it turned out waiting so long had it's benefits. I decided to set up a budget of $20 per month to use on iTunes. That means every month, I could purchase one album or a few songs. This came with a lot of benefits.

1. It would keep me from over spending
2. I would have at least an entire month to listen to what I bought before getting new stuff
3. It gives me something to look forward to that brings me joy. Just thinking about what I will buy next month and adding singles to my wish list excites the crap out of me. I can't tell you how long it took for those 9 days to pass so that March could start so I could get more music.

Now I thought about how easy it was for me to spend $20 every month on iTunes. That's $240 a year I could be saving but.... I don't care. That amount is paltry compared to the joy I would get with spending it on music. It really has been a long wait and I am happy with the budget I set up and everything.

I was never too fond of Apple before but because of this gift they have given to me, I've warmed up a bit to them. The wait was really too long. This is also why I was swayed into purchasing an iPad mini over a nexus 7 as well but I still went back with the nexus 7 after thorough evaluation. Anyways. Thank you Apple. I've waited a really long time.

P.S

I did check Amazon the same night that I found out Apple had made music available and sadly amazon hasn't stepped up to the plate as yet.