So, you know that iTunes lets you listen to Internet radio. That’s great, and it lets you discover lots of music you’ve never heard before. It’s especially good if, like me, you live in the country and don’t have many FM radio stations.
But there should be more. Apple should introduce iTunes Music Store radio stations, to play selected tracks available from the iTunes Music Store. Why? Well, when you go into a bricks-and-mortar store, you can see thousands of CDs. When you go into the iTunes Music Store, you only see a few dozen for each genre. Okay, up that to at least 100 for each, since you can look at the list of top albums or top songs. But that’s not much. Especially if you aren’t interested in the best-sellers.The iTunes Music Store is great when you know what you are looking for – you can search by song, artist, album or composer, and listen to previews. But what about all the other music you’ll never hear because you’ve never heard of it? If Apple were to create one Internet radio station for each genre, listeners could discover much more music. I can imagine that a simple double-click on the song name in the iTunes display would take you to that song on the music store.
The reason behind this idea goes beyond simple commercialism. Sure, Apple would sell more music, but it would also allow more artists to get their music heard. Listen to any FM radio station today and you’ll hear about 30 songs in rotation, over and over. We need variety; musicians need exposure; and Apple would get sales. Everyone would be happy.
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