Great B-Sides
One minor gripe I have with the CD as a format, and particularly with the rise of I-Tunes, is the lack of B-Sides. I'll admit, I'm not the most musically-inclined legal scholar ever, but I've spent the entire day listening to B-sides of CD-singles.
(Of course, CD's don't really have B-sides, in the sense that you don't flip them over to hear what's on them. But you know what I mean.)
For reasons I've never been entirely clear on, B-sides have a tendency to be a bit more experimental than the singles with which they're packaged. And CD singles for a while would contain bits of music that weren't on the album. Horrible marketing trickery requiring you to buy more stuff if you wanted a complete collection of an artist's ouevre? Sure. But they were fun, so I couldn't complain too much.
After all, Tori Amos released an entire album of B-sides off Under the Pink and I generally think they're some of her finer works. But topping off the day has to be the B-side of Mary Chapin Carpenter's Almost Home. It's a cover of Bruce Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark. You know, the one with the happy, chirpy video that gave Courtney Cox screen time before the rest of the world was her Friend? Well, Carpenter covers it without the E Street Bands deliberate optimism, and the grimy awfulness of the lyrics really shine through.
If you can find it available for download somewhere, get it. It's great.
