Refraction

I’ve never done one of these Friday Five things before, so… well…

1. Who is your favorite singer/musician? Why?
Easy one. Maaya Sakamoto. I love her voice. Dulcet tones indeed. Her songs don’t stick to one genre over and over again; there’s always variety. I like her stuff over Ayumi Hamasaki’s because well… a lot of Ayumi’s songs sounds exactly the same ??;;

2. What one singer/musician can you not stand? Why?
Probably Britney Spears. For the simple, simple reason that she is so FAKE. As Sam says, “All her songs are heavy on the backup singers. Because she can’t sing.” Not to mention the girl has no fashion sense at all v_v;;

3. If your favorite singer wasn’t in the music business, do you think you would still like him/her as a person?
I’m not really sure how to answer this question; I most likely wouldn’t have heard of her if she didn’t release songs.

4. Have you been to any concerts? If yes, who put on the best show?
No. Sorry.

5. What are your thoughts on downloading free music online vs. purchasing albums? Do you feel the RIAA is right in its pursuit to stop people from downloading free music?
Bwee hee hee hee hee! I’m going to have fun with this question!

I feel downloading is fine to sample artists; I won’t hide the fact that I have a very large number of mp3’s on my computer. However, contrary to popular belief, they aren’t all locked up in a top three of artists I have. I have a lot of different artists. (Yeah, and none of you believe me.) I also have a lot of Sailor Moon music on my computer, and a LOT of those CDs are out of print. Yes, I can still find bootleg versions. For me, the question then becomes: bootleg or download? I feel downloading is definitely the lesser of two evils there.

As for purchasing albums… licensed Japanese CDs are VERY, VERY expensive. No, that doesn’t really justify downloading music, but it’s likely I never would have bought the CDs in the first place had it not been for some random downloading by yours truly. It’s a hard question to answer, for sure. This isn’t necessarily the same situation as downloading music produced by North American artists: there aren’t many radio stations I can turn to that will play the music for free. My interest in these artists depends solely on downloading.

As for the RIAA (is that that Recording Industry Association of America?)… I don’t know. I can understand where they’re coming from… and I do understand that downloading is copyright infringement and stealing and all that good stuff… But I’m also not sure how this is entirely differently from recording songs from the radio. >>;