Musings in Search of a Muse

Wandering out and about today I picked up a copy of Sahara (2005) on DVD and it came with a nice bonus -- 3 free music downloads from MSN Music. Here's what I acquired:

• "Blackbird (Live Version)"
• Bobby McFerrin
• The Voice
• As much as I enjoy Mr. McFerrin's work, this track languished in my iTunes "Wish List" for some time. Then I figured if I can get it free ... so I went for it. It's a decent rendition of the Beatles original. If it weren't for the novelty and genius of the performance, though, I probably wouldn't have considered it in the first place. And I it hadn't been free then it likely would have sat in limbo for some time hence.
• "Twenty Five Miles"
• Edwin Starr
• The Very Best Of Edwin Starr
• In, out, in, out. This track was pretty active in the "Wish List." For some reason I kept deleting it then finding it again. I'm glad that I finally picked up, though, because no one should pass up a classic such as this. But it never quite made it to the buy stage for some reason.
  
• "I Can't Watch This"
• Weird Al Yankovic
• Off The Deep End
• Like McFerrin, Yankovic is irresistible. The last of the three tracks downloaded today, I was surprised with myself that I searched so long for without considering Weird Al. I already have quite a few of his tracks -- mostly ripped from CDs -- but I hadn't even heard this one before. Like most of this artist's oeuvre (rather obscure pun intended) it's a parody, but one that will make M.C. Hammer some money.
  

Now I've got to figure out a way to get them into iTunes without doing the ol' burn-a-disc-then-rip-it routine. That's just so inconvenient in many ways. But the tracks were free. Maybe I'll just let them live in Windows Media Player. It's not like I plan on listening them too often with the volume of music that I have. But I don't care for the library management feature on WMP and I never have.

Nor do I care for MSN Music, either. Sure, I appreciate the free music, but getting it was something of a chore. Browsing is difficult compared with other services. You'll notice in the picture to the left that there is no category for Inspirational music nor one for any specific religion. Then once a category is chosen, navigating to anything specific is near impossible. Searching is even harder. There is no means by which one can narrow the search before hitting the Go button. Filtering can be done only after the search starts and then it is a tedious, plodding process.