And after a couple of days posting about how great Amazon’s DRM free service is, a flippant comment that iTunes should head this way to, and this rumour hits the feeds today.

Basically Apple are rumoured to be offering up DRM tracks from EMI at first from today (9th Dec) under the iTunes Plus service and is currently negotiating with a few of the other big names for more.

I wait and see.  It would be a very very significant move and at the moment I’m not at all sure how Apple could make the move without severely crippling revenue streams but hey I don’t own any Apple shares – fingers are well crossed.

Yesterday I talked briefly about just how online services like Last.FM and Spotify have changed my music listening habits from a strictly “buy CD > rip CD > listen to rip” model to just buying the music in digital downloadable format from the off.

Curiously only an hour or so after posting my thoughts a friend of mine Jonathon Greene (@atmasphere as many more know him) dropped a comment onto Jaiku.com:

“last.fm recommendation radio definitely leads to purchase for me …”

Now I know he hadn’t seen my post (I checked the logs) but it seems that the streaming model is working.  Whether or not services like Last.FM, Spotify or even Pandora are making any money from their subscriptions they should definately be making decent cash of referrals through to sites like Amazon.  At the end of yesterday’s ramblings I eluded to wanting a “Buy now” type button in my favourite media play: Songbird.  Now I am convinced that this would  be a seriously powerful revenue source for projects such as Spotify.

Hands up everyone who still has fond memories of vinyl records.  What about mix tapes, your very own personal mashup of the Chart Show on Radio 1 (sorry for the UK specific reference but hey) from Sunday evenings – you know those three hours of sitting hunched over the pause button trying to edit out all the mindless talk.

Well in the last couple of weeks I’ve really noticed a significant change in my listening habits.  It’s not that my tastes have changed, my band loyalties (such as they were) or even the devices upon which playback is made.

I’ve been MP3′d up for years and years but only music that I’ve ripped myself – the modern equivelent of that Chart Show mix tape if you will.  I’ve got tens  of gig’s of the stuff and a very ecclectic set it is too.

The change has been nothing more significant than the emotional break from the physical media.

Now this mind shift was probably facilitated by our recent move from New Zealand and the wonderful 20kg baggage restrictions.  The thought of 3 – 4 months without access to our music saw me make a concerted effort to get a few more CD’s ripped and stashed onto a portable drive ready for a new PC / phone / whatever when we arrived.

But in the three or so months we’ve been back in the UK I have listened to little of it.  The reason?  Well Last.FM has had a lot to do with it, and in particular a wonderful little  app on my Nokia E71 phone called Mobbler.  Mobbler is a scrobbler (technical term for a widgetty bit of software that earwigs in on what you are listening too and tells Last.FM).  But more importantly Mobbler is a Last.FM client, it allows me to listen to tracks streamed direct to my phone, whereever I am based up not only my prior music experiences but also those of my online friends, and even others unknown to me with similar tastes.  All very clever and it started me on the journey to being CD free.

From Mobbler, the official scrobbler for Last.FM was loaded on to the Netbook allowing for some heavier duty recommendations (tip – create a playlist of your most frequently played music and just set it to run in the background.  Last.FM then gets a decent enough picture of you).  Linked in to Windows Media Player (tried iTunes but on Windows and a Netbook the experience is like wading through treacle).

Then along came Spotify.  A UK born music streaming service in it’s infancy and currently in beta.  It’s a subscription service a little like Last.FM but without the community efforts (although that’s in the pipeline I believe).  The big difference is you can listen to whole albums, new ones, just released music.  And so far I have listened to pretty well all the albums out during the latter half of 2008 I had wanted to buy.  Fabulous.

Why is this significant.  Well remember buying a CD because you loved the singles only to discover that a good 40% of the tracks were shite?  I won’t mention names but man do I have some coasters stacked in a box somewhere.  That won’t happen to me again.

No more silly 20 second previews on e-commerce sights giving you just enough of an insight into nothing.

Now I can vet the album, if I like it I can stay tethered to my PC and listen to it ad nauseum or as I prefer head on over to a store and buy the thing, or just the tracks I want.  And with Amazon.co.uk’s recently opened MP3 store this means new release albums from as little as £3 each with no DRM evilness.

Mr Job’s you have made a tonne, and we congratulate you on your services to choice but it really is time to scrap the DRM crap in iTunes.

So today the cycle was broken.  19 years after I bought my first CD (3 actually as they came as a package with my first CD player) I made the switch to pure digital.  Sod the purist this is all about convenience, instantaneous entertainment has arrived in Chez Craggs and I for one like it.

Of the three albums I previewed this morning, two were purchased and as I type this I  am reviewing a third.  An album discovered online from an artist who has never appealled before and I’m tempted to buy that as well.

To all the bigots, ludites and general grumpiness within the music industry who spend millions lobbying, litigating and bullying people into believing that digital music is killing the business I say arse.  Times have changed, technology has opened up new and in my opinion better distribution channels (and creative ones for that matter) BUT people’s desire for entertainment hasn’t so stop bitching and get on with offering what people want.

Right then, now all I want is Songbird to include a Spotify client, Last.FM scrobbler, iPod & Nokia S60 media player plugins and finally a quick link Amazon and I’d be really really really happy.