Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Creamtastic Napster: Ten Years After
Posted by Steve Haruch on Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 6:06 AM
Thanks to Idolator for reminding us that it was 10 years ago this month that Napster first lit up the Internets and seduced us into all that devil-may-care file-sharing that we didn't know was illegal yet. And, you know, "changed the music industry forever" eventually. Weren't the '90s great? (Better than the Aughts?) This of course leads to M.J.'s lead question: What was the first song you downloaded from Napster?
I think most people's response to this question is, "I don't remember." It's not like losing your virginity--y'know, special. Or maybe it is. Maybe that first download is "our" generation's original sin. Our Pandora's box, so to speak. Anyway, I don't remember what the first song was. I was using an office that was on loan from a professor on sabbatical, had multiple T3 lines and downloaded with impunity. I think it might have been "Back in Black." At the time, I was getting back into getting back into AC/DC because, when I was coming up, the kids who listened to AC/DC drove Camaros, got suspended from school for fighting and shot bottle rockets at kids like me. So I missed out on all that the first time around, because I was too busy trying to memorize all of Dead Kennedys' "Kinky Sex Makes the World Go Around" and painting S.N.F.U. album art on my grip tape. But I digress.
D. Patrick can't remember who he lost his virginity to, either--his first d-load was probably either Jimmy Eat World's Clarity or Pedro the Lion's Control, he says. Gold, not surprisingly, can remember his first, which was the Braid song "Please Drive Faster."
So, your first Napster grab?
Comments (12)
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It seems like only yesterday I was stealing food from the mouths of Dr. Dre's children. How wistful.
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while i can't remember exactly which song, i do remember the first mix tape i made from Napster mp3's (dunno if anyone else did this, but i didn't have a cd burner, so i'd line my audio out into a tape deck and make mix tapes to listen to while i delivered pizza).
i cant' give you a complete tracklisting, but recall to the best of my ability:
bad brains - "sailin' on"
weezer - "devotion" (snd some other =W= rarities)
elton john - "tiny dancer"
juice newton - "angel of the morning"
porno for pyros - "tahitian moon"
jackson 5 - "i want you back"
beck - "mtv makes me want to smoke crack"
Never used Napster. I was in grad school during its heyday (99-00) and had a really, really OLD computer - which couldn't run it.
My first downloads were in early 2002. BRMC's first album, New Pornographer's Mass Romantic and Swervedriver's Mescal Head were among the earliest albums I d/l'd.
i remember one of the troubles with napster - especially with a 56k modem - was that sometimes the songs wouldn't finish downloading completely. and then you'd have mp3's that cut off at some point before the song ended. or sometimes they did download completely, but whoever you got it from had the same problem and it still wasn't the whole song.
oh man... talk about when something seems too good to be true it must be all a dream. remember when there'd be that one crazy rare track you wanted but whoever the host was had the slowest modem in the world and you'd leave the program up for a 3 days thinking it might finally go through? i was pretty jazzed to find komeda's swedish album pop pa svenska.
It was either Ubu Dance Party by Pere Ubu or I Wanna Destroy You by The Soft Boys
It might not have been the first, but I distinctly remember downloading Vengaboys "Boom Boom Boom Boom." Classic.
DUDE. Back in the day I could recant "kinky sex makes the world go round" word for word. FUCKYEAH!
Also, I was rocking my DK shirt last night at the bar too.
LOOOOOL I remember "Teenage Dirtbag." The Wheatus guy had a really high voice, so you thought it was all about a lesbian couple, but then when you saw a picture of the band, you found out it was just a guy singing after all, & it was sort of disappointing. Dunno why I devoted so much attention to this issue.
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