I have a pet peeve - hearing a song that I really like on the radio but then finding it’s not yet available to buy, as a single or on an album, online or in stores. An extension of that is hearing a new song from a favorite band, then finding out the album won’t be released for months still.

I’m listening to radiou.com (awesome, highly recommended FM/online radio station!) and heard a song I liked. I’ve heard this song (Sleeping In by Nevertheless) a few times over the past couple weeks but was finally in a place to do something about it, i.e. buy it so I could listen whenever I wanted. I headed to iTunes to download it, but the song wasn’t available, so I went to Amazon.com. Amazon at least had an entry for the song, but stated it (the single) wouldn’t be available until next week! The song will have had about a month of radio play before it’s even available for download, then at least another month before the new album is released. Torture! On RadioU’s Twenty Most Wanted, four aren’t available for purchase yet. Not a lot, but considering these are the 20 most requested songs on the station, you know people would be willing to pay for them.

In this age of everything being digital, you would think they (record labels? distributors?) would have songs available for purchase and download immediately on iTunes, Amazon, etc. I guess you could also argue in this age of everything being digital and everything being pirated, they want to give the radio stations a fighting chance by giving them some exclusive time for airplay. Nah, that’s probably not it. Are they trying to build hype and generate a buzz? Who knows what the reason is, but it drives me nuts nevertheless!

Maybe I should just learn some patience…