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View Full Version : Zune Pass: All You Can Eat - Usually

David Tucker
11-13-2007, 03:00 PM
<p>Angels &amp; Airwaves is currently one of my favorite bands so I was very excited this past Tuesday when their new album was released. In fact, I&rsquo;m listening to &ldquo;I Empire&rdquo; right now. When I got home from work I went straight to the Zune Marketplace and sure enough, there it was. I was very eager to add it to my music collection so I clicked on it and was greeted with a very unpleasant sight.<br /><br /></p><center><img border="1" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//zt/auto/1194835743.usr307.png" alt="" /></center><br /><br />In case you&rsquo;re not sure what I&rsquo;m talking about, look closely at the &ldquo;Download Album&rdquo; option. If I could download it for Zune Pass, then there would be a white arrow that&rsquo;s currently grayed out. I don&rsquo;t know why, but while AVA&rsquo;s first album is available, the second is not. Both were put out by Suretone so I don&rsquo;t see what would have changed.<br /><br />My only other option was to purchase the tracks. While I have no problem subscribing to Zune Pass and being bound by the limitation of DRM for subscription music, I just don&rsquo;t want to buy music that way. Not when I can buy at F.Y.E. the CD for nearly the same price and have more flexibility with it. So today I ended up buying the album because I really wanted to hear it.<br /><br />Fortunately this isn&rsquo;t something I often face. I can think of only three other bands off hand that I find to be a problem. One is Creed and the other is Evanescence. The final one is Metallica and I&rsquo;m sure that will surprise no one. At least it shouldn&rsquo;t if you&rsquo;ve kept up with their very &lsquo;anti-digital&rsquo; stance. Its unfortunate and something I imagine Microsoft would make go away if they could since it&rsquo;s a bigger sell if they can say all of their music is available for Zune pass.<br /><br />But it is what it is and while it makes me look down on any bands that prevent me from fully utilizing my Pass I can&rsquo;t deny that I still love the music. So for the occasional album, I&rsquo;ll buy it if I really want it. Angels &amp; Airwaves is the only one I&rsquo;ve bothered to so far. And, by the way, if you haven&rsquo;t listened to AVA yet, go check them out. If you liked blink 182 then you&rsquo;ll love Tom DeLonge&rsquo;s new band.
fgarcia10
11-13-2007, 04:14 PM
in the new marketplace it will let you download with the zune pass, check again..
David Tucker
11-13-2007, 04:32 PM
Yes, you can, which I discovered this morning (this article was obviously written a few days ago) but the point stands since you could go check Evanescence if you like
fgarcia10
11-13-2007, 06:18 PM
I see, I think it happened to me before also with a different artist. I wonder what the rules are? and why...
onlydarksets
11-13-2007, 06:57 PM
That is typical of new releases by popular bands. It happens frequently in Yahoo Unlimited.
David Tucker
11-13-2007, 07:53 PM
onlydarksets: Yes & no...some popular bands don't show up. But many more do. Its very odd to me since many times its the same recording studio for 2 bands that do and don't show.

fgarcia: I can only imagine it comes down to the band more than anything else. Metallica is a good example of this. The only other band that I really like and isn't available is Creed and I imagine due to the nature of their less than amiable breakup, that's keeping them off the Zune Pass.
onlydarksets
11-13-2007, 08:17 PM
You are right - I did not mean to say that it was common, just that it is not uncommon to see it for new releases. I'm not putting thoughts to paper well today...