Couldn't agree with you more about the liner notes and additional content we miss out on with a download from iTMS. Is that John Lee Hooker guesting on guitar on track 6? We'll never know with a iTMS purchase.
And while we're ragging on iTMS, wasn't Apples philosophy supposed to be $9.99 albums. Period. Many of the single CD's I've shopped for lately have been $12 to $13. Ryan Adams "Gold" is $11.88 on iTMS and $13.99 new in my local record store. I'm only spending $2 more for the CD and I've got a quality recording with lyrics, a booklet, and more importantly, a physical item that actually has value after the purchase. iTMS downloads sound like crap and have a value of ZERO after the purchase. $9.99 was OK for a quick fix for some new music, but $12 to $13 is getting ridiculous.
And one more complaint...why are there like 6 copies of the same CD for thousands of titles? What would it take to remove all the duplicates. David Bowie's "Outside" is listed 3 times on 1 page - twice as "Outside" and once as "Outside - Bonus Tracks". All have the same 20 tracks and the same description and all are the same price ($13.99). If they're all exactly the same why do they have to list it 3 times with 2 different titles? Maybe one of the reasons searching sucks on iTMS is because the database is so cluttered with millions of useless, confusing duplicate tracks.
I'm off to Amazon to get Outside for $11.99 (it's the 19 track version, but I think I'll get by)
6 Things I Would Change in the iTunes Store