I gave up on iTunes Match about two years ago. It kept corrupting my music files, and I would often end up with duplicate files. I would also import high quality CDs into iTunes and the Match program would replace them with lower definition files. Lastly, if when I entered my CDs into Match, and did something as minor as leaving an extra space between two words in an album or song title, Match would either not recognize the album or would replace it with something different. I literally spent DAYS talking with tech support to function and eventually decided the aggravation was not worth the convenience.
Sorry, but I find this very strange to say the very least. iTunes Match music is played from Apple's end, *not from your computer. If the files were corrupt or downgraded they would be for everyone else. *You can download the Apple versions to your iTunes (now Music) system library if you so choose, replacing the old CD versions, which I have done for over 100 GB of music, and all are perfect, in the new 'higher than CD' quality. I am not sure what you mean by 'high-quality CDs', Apple upgrades the music to a higher standard than CDs.
A fabulous album called Absolutely by Rik Emmett of Triumph is still not on Apple Music. Nor is it likely ever to be. Kirk McElhearn and Chris Breen have written over the years that there is still a ton of music not included within major streaming services.
Well of course obscure stuff isn’t there right? Triumph isn’t that obscure. At their arena rock peak, they were the second best Canadian trio performing big concerts worldwide—second only to Rush. Heard of the latter?
Triumph had numerous songs getting regular airplay in the 70s and 80s. An iconic lyric is “I’ve got the magic power of the music in me” — from Magic Power. Another of many anthems is Lay It On the Line.
With Rush you had a brilliant guitarist in Alex Lifeson, the bassist Geddy Lee being lead singer, and the drummer the (late great) Neil Peart as the lyricist. With Triumph the excellent guitarist was also the lead singer and composer: Rik Emmett.
Triumph did not make it to 20 years before breaking up. When recording his first solo album Absolutely in 1989, Rik Emmett also played all the instruments on the album. But you need to own Absolutely on CD and upload it via iTunes Match to enjoy it. I’ve spent this long making this one example of profoundly exquisite music unavailable on streaming services. Breen and McElhearn have written of plenty of other quality musicians in the same category. Who knows, maybe it’s rights issues?
Now excuse me as I once again play that album. If you can find it on the web, my favorite song is called The Big Lie—it has a lyric “the deficit grows like Pinocchio’s nose while we gaze in admiration at the emperor’s new clothes.” :-)
P.S. You can hear his second solo album on Apple Music. Here’s El Cuento del Gadjo to try Rik Emmett
I just checked youtube music and there are a lot of Triumph albums available to stream. Don’t know the band so not sure how much of their catalogue is showing. If an artist doesn’t allow their music on a major streaming service, I just don’t listen to them anymore. When LZ and the Beatles were holdouts years ago I just stopped listening to them and never really went back. It is not like there is a shortage of fantastic music available. If you are a die hard fan you probably have the LP and CD’s anyway. Just rip the latter.
Matching songs is a lot easier problem to solve than matching photos. Just a note in case thought that Apple could implement a system to scan every photo you upload to see if it was illegal without screwing it up finding unintended consequences (the least of these being strangers looking at your photos without your permission).
bulk001 said: If an artist doesn’t allow their music on a major streaming service, I just don’t listen to them anymore. When LZ and the Beatles were holdouts years ago I just stopped listening to them and never really went back. It is not like there is a shortage of fantastic music available. If you are a die hard fan you probably have the LP and CD’s anyway. Just rip the latter.
While I completely understand your standpoint, this is incredibly frustrating to read from an artist's standpoint, because it encapsulates the shitty situation: If you don't partake in a corrupt system built by the music industry to guarantee that they will ALWAYS make money off ALL music that is produced — even if it's not on their labels, but "indie", I simply won't listen to your stuff.
(For explanation: The current streaming system is rigged - the money you pay for streaming doesn't go to the artists YOU listen to; it gets thrown in with everybody else's money, and THAT is then divided up among ALL artists by number of streams.
This means that for the die-hard indie fan who subscribes and listens to his six favourite bands exclusively, virtually all his subscription money STILL goes to the major acts that get a billion plays, while the artists he actually listens to see fractions of a penny from him.
This is unlikely to change for market leader Spotify, because guess who owns most of that company? Yup, major labels.
Apple might have the power to change this, but they'd have to renegotiate every single distribution deal with every single label to make it happen. And this isn't Steve Jobs saying "I know how to save the industry" twenty years ago; this is the industry already having a model and a portal in place to milk the whole community to their full advantage and in a position to give Apple the finger.
And the only option artists have is to not partake in the circus — while the consumer, understandably, goes, "Well, I guess I just won't listen to you, then — there's no shortage of fantastic music available."
Looks like they just fixed iTunes Match (at least for now), had some albums sitting there not fully downloading for the last few days and in the last half hour they have all updated to include all tracks, sweet!
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(For explanation:
The current streaming system is rigged - the money you pay for streaming doesn't go to the artists YOU listen to; it gets thrown in with everybody else's money, and THAT is then divided up among ALL artists by number of streams.