Your first MP3

[Smackdaddy-OG]

Think back. What was the first MP3 you heard. Back in '98 I got a copy of Metallica - Enter Sandman and played it in Fraunhoffer's Winplay3. I brought it in to show people at work. Most of them were like "who wants to listen to music on your computer?". How short sighted of them http://www.rushcomics.com/ubb/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by Smackdaddy (edited April 18, 2001).]

[Smackdaddy-OG]

Time to reminisce with Smack.

Back in the days you had to dig through FTP sites and go to sites like Blex's page to find them. They were often busy. I was also on a 28.8k so I ended up using FXP to transfer them to my school's shell account and then download them from there later. Ratios bit hard, especially when some fucker's site would disconnect right after your upload and you lost all your credits.

Then came Scour where 85% of the hits were dead links cause the person had to be online for you to grab the song and they usually never were.

Then the FTP sites started getting greedy and you had to click on banners to get passwords. Blex's page went down.

RIAA started cracking down on FTP sites a little bit, but remember none of this is mainstream yet. There are no consumer MP3 players other than MP3Mobile by Hugo Fiennes, a really cool guy. He went on to found empeg.com and was later bought out by S3 (or Sonic Blue as they are called now).

Then there was a short dark age where most of the sites sucked...

And then came Napster. It was a silly IRC frontend for the most part. Yet, all the average llamas who didn't even know where the "on" button on their PC was could use it. It was brainless compared to FTP sites and server. Soon there was no real challenge anymore. The rare songs that used to take weeks of FTP site crawling to find could be found on Napster in a day or two tops. It's a little sad when your cool little underground movement gets discovered and is not so elite (or is it 3l33t?) anymore. But the convenience and time saved more than made up for it.

Napster eventually grew so popular that the servers used to not allow logins anymore. In stepped all the clone servers and Napigator. Now you could choose which server you went to and some of these other servers rivalled Napster's song base.

By now, mp3 mania had caught on and everyone was jumping in, including the RIAA. The battle with Napster begins. The end of this story has yet to play itself out.

[Renard]

Hehe i remember using scour when it first started, it was the best at the time. I used some other sites that had *alot* of mp3s available for download. Of course alot then was like 500-1000. It was a good starting point especially being on 28.8

[hipcheck]

You want to talk about going back, I'll go you one better.

Older people talk about where they were when JFK was shot, well my generation has a weird one. I was listening to the radio one day in the early 90s, and the DJ started talking about how everyone knows exactly where they were the first time they heard "Birthday" by Sugarcubes (Bjork).

My first thought, was that this was about the most archane reference anyone had come up with in a while, and why the hell would anyone remember something like that... and then it popped into my head, I was driving west on Beacon Street, wondering what the hell I was listening to, that day in the late 80s.

I'm sure no one else on here remembers this, but I think it's a pretty interesting milestone, more obscure than Lennon getting shot or UCLA winning the Final 4 =)

[James Daily]

Short and sweet... "Star Wars: Imperial March." By John Williams, obviously.

[Mr. McD]

The first MP3 I ever downloaded was Christina Aguilera's "Genie In A Bottle".

Actually, that was only about 14 months ago!

[Kyle]

Originally posted by Mr. McD:
The first MP3 I ever downloaded was Christina Aguilera's "Genie In A Bottle".

Actually, that was only about 14 months ago!

And the fact that you would come into a public (or semi) forum and admit that makes you a stronger person than I am.

[Mr. McD]

Originally posted by Kyle:
And the fact that you would come into a public (or semi) forum and admit that makes you a stronger person than I am.



http://www.rushcomics.com/ubb/confused.gif

[Kyle]

Well Jesus man, its not like it was a VIDEO of her or something http://www.rushcomics.com/ubb/smile.gif

[steauengeglase]

Tinto and Tarantula: "The strange face of love." Great song for late night Quake playing. I took it from the file server at work.

[Mr. McD]

Originally posted by Kyle:
Well Jesus man, its not like it was a VIDEO of her or something http://www.rushcomics.com/ubb/smile.gif


Now I'm really confused. What exactly are you trying to say? Sorry if I missed something, but I just don't know what's going on. http://www.rushcomics.com/ubb/confused.gif

[steauengeglase]

Hmmmm because she is a hoe?

[Smackdaddy-OG]

Kyle's saying you have no business listening to bubble gum pop music unless it's the background noise for some chick shaking her booty.

I disagree. I kinda like some of Britney Spears' music and I have a vivid enough imagination to picture her when I hear the songs http://www.rushcomics.com/ubb/smile.gif

[Mr. McD]

Testing... Is anyone else having problems with this page? I can't get it to refresh.

[Mr. McD]

Originally posted by Smackdaddy:
Kyle's saying you have no business listening to bubble gum pop music unless it's the background noise for some chick shaking her booty.

I disagree. I kinda like some of Britney Spears' music and I have a vivid enough imagination to picture her when I hear the songs http://www.rushcomics.com/ubb/smile.gif


Oh, OK http://www.rushcomics.com/ubb/redface.gif
It was an accident anyway. The question was, what was the first MP3 I heard, not, what was the first MP3 I actually meant to download. http://www.rushcomics.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

BTW, I don't see why there's any stigma attached to that kind of music, or any other type of music for that matter. I enjoy all types of music, and there are good and bad examples of each. But no style is any better or worse overall than the others. As far as I'm concerned, they're all equally valid.

[Kyle]

I just don't have much respect for that type of music because the artists and their success are nothing more than the products of marketing engines. Nsync, BSB, all those boy bands etc. Now they have these shows like popstars that are bringing this fact to the forefront and people don't care.

I have more respect for artists who just really love music, like Lenny Kravitz, or Men Without Hats.

[Flobee]

Kyle, I happen to share a lot of the same gripes that you do. The direction that popular music is taking is really scaring me and I don't see a very good future. Think back to a decade or so ago and the only real contrived act out there with any kind of following was New Kids On The Block. Most successful bands were real musicians with a real love for music, so things were still more than passable.

Fast forward to today and the landscape is just littered with tons of this manufactured crap, and it's squeezing out the quality stuff. The big problem is that people are sheep and are stupid enough to put up with this crap. The fact that they keep buying albums means that we'll just see more and more of these boy bands or girl bands springing up for the indefinite future. There is no end in sight, at least for the time being.

I fear that if things don't come to a boil within the next few years, we may not see another honest-to-goodness music-loving group like Men Without Hats until we're all middle aged growed-ups. By then, we'll all have been so hardened by life's burdens that we won't be able to appreciate what comes out of the pipe.

For now, Kyle, I think all we can do is never let our Men albums get dusty. I, for one, will be playing "Safety Dance" on a continuous loop at maximum volume until I go deaf or forget who I am, whichever comes first. I encourage you and the other Rush people out there to do the same. Godspeed!

[Smackdaddy-OG]

Almost all artists are part of marketing engines or you'd never hear of them. The Beatles were part of one of the greatest marketing machines ever and their music was still great. Now I'm not putting Britney on the same level as the Beatles, but it's catchy music. I don't concern myself too much about how the music or band was formed. I just like to listen.

Originally posted by Kyle:
I just don't have much respect for that type of music because the artists and their success are nothing more than the products of marketing engines. Nsync, BSB, all those boy bands etc. Now they have these shows like popstars that are bringing this fact to the forefront and people don't care.

I have more respect for artists who just really love music, like Lenny Kravitz, or Men Without Hats.

[DavidReich]

Getting back on track...
Got my cpu built by a buddy at a small cpu consulting firm... he gave me about 50 mp3s...

first thing I downloaded: Dazed and Confused by Led Zeppelin. A great group that wasn't manufactured by any marketing machine... heck they hardly (if at all) released singles.

DR -Hardcore Zep =]

[Smackdaddy-OG]

Led Zepelling kicks MUCH ass!

"Squeeze my lemon till the juice runs down my leg [Britney]"

http://www.rushcomics.com/ubb/smile.gif

[ArchdukeFerdinand]

Now come on. You can't honestly say the only contrived pop group of the 80s was the new kids on the block. Try Milli Vanilli, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson and a host of others. Its no worse now than it was, we're simply at a different point in the pendulum swing. Eventually "Rock" music will come back into favor and it will have some gussied up name like it has every time "Hair metal, Punk, alternative." Then we'll get crap pop groups again. It happens. Btw, I remember when scour started, I do not however remember the first mp3 I heard. I think it was green onion by booker t and the MGs.

[hamatoyoshi]

Absolutely no clue on this one...

[trahma]

Back in 1997, via an aol mass mail (remember where you got 500+ pieces of warez sent to your mailbox). I downloaded Metallica - Enter Sandman in 4 or 5 1 meg zips, and listened to them in WinPlay3 (crazy coincidence isn't it?) At the time I was using a Pentium 75mhz machine with 8 megs of ram. It was skipping cause the computer was so slow but hey when it didn't skip the quality was good. Then I hooked up with CDA (compress da audio) and did some stuff for them... uhm I'm not saying what thouugh =)

-Justin

[Rob]

Britney Spears: Hit me baby one more time

Don't ask why, that just happened to be my first MP3 ever.

[@frosty]

I think it was "Boys n tha hood" by NWA

[Smackdaddy]

Originally posted by LB - Rob:
<STRONG>Britney Spears: Hit me baby one more time

Don't ask why, that just happened to be my first MP3 ever.</STRONG>

That was the first music video I downloaded and kept. Usually I just download, watch & reminisce, and then delete. That one was a keeper though.