What Was the Very First MP3 You Downloaded?

Anonymous Coward asks: "I was wondering whether people remember the very first MP3 file they ever downloaded. For me it was Cher's 1998 single 'Believe.' I was at work and, after reading an article about MP3s on CNET, I figured I'd give it a try. I think it's strange that I remember it so clearly. I mean, it's not like it was a first kiss or anything. I started out using WS FTP LE and Winamp. 1000s of MP3s later, WS FTP LE is a distant memory but Winamp is still my player of choice. What about you?"

Comments

Yep, anonymous is good

[alastairm]

For me it was Cher's 1998 single 'Believe.'

Well I think we can all see why you don't want to reveal your identity.

Re:Yep, anonymous is good

[biglig2]

It's either that or because his e-mail address is Mitch.Bainwol@riaa.com...

Me? never downloaded one!

[KDan]

No sir! I didn't! Never! I don't even know what they are! What's an mp3 anyway? Huh? Why you bringing the subject up? Maybe YOU have something to hide, huh? huh? huh?

*shifty eyes*

Daniel

Re:Me? never downloaded one!

[Molina the Bofh]

> What's an mp3 anyway?

MP3 is a loathable format created by communists in order to disrupt economics. Those evil terrorists usually approach innocent kids with crap speak like "information wants to be free".

DON'T FALL INTO THIS TRAP. Chances are if you ever try one MP3, you'll become addicted and need more and more. Countless downloads, and sleepless nights are to come. Not to talk on spending loads of cash for new HD's, and faster broadband. Even worse, you may fall to the perils of file sharing, in wich a bad hacker will download and destroy all your files.

It's often said that MP3s are a gateway file. Once MP3s are not enough, people usually want stronger files, like .AVI, .MPEG.

Not music at all

[ctr2sprt]

I first was exposed to MP3s on my college's LAN. This was back when I ran OS/2, so I think my first player was actually a port of mpg123. (Later there came a Winamp clone that was slightly better.) But all my first MP3s were not actually music. At the time I was much more into classical music and very strange genres, which weren't really available. But there were lots of clips from Dennis Leary, Chris Rock, and other comedians. So that's what I started with. The music came later, when MP3s were popular enough that other people on the network got music I actually liked. Eventually I started listening to the other stuff too, just because it was so easy, and found I liked a lot of it.

I probably had a P-133. My roommate had a P2-266 of which I was extremely jealous. Of course, I graduated with a P3-450 and he graduated with a P2-266, so I suppose I had the last laugh.

Downloaded, then purchased.

[ezraekman]

I also began with WS-FTP and Winamp, though I'm not using either anymore. Many many moons ago, I was on an Underworld binge, and downloaded an Underworld mix of a Chemical Brothers song. A week later, I owned the single. I still do this with music, and now, I'm also downloading AVIs and MPEGs of interesting looking movies that I don't particularly relish paying a rental fee just to see if I like them. But if I do, I'll own the DVD shortly. To me, the archive and legitimacy is worth the cash.

Hey! Media industry moguls! Pay attention! I'm your target market. I try. If I like, I buy. Go ahead; sue me for sampling what I like for free via P2P, instead of what you think I should like for free, via the radio. I'll keep "sampling", but this time I'll keep what I download, and purchase no more. It's your call.

back in 1993...

[dario_moreno]

I remember someone in the Sun workstation room of my school playing a crappy version of the Star Wars theme ; we were all wondering where the fun was in that (since we all had that famous sally.au and 007.au) when he said that the file was only a few ko (we had a 2Mo quota then) thanks to a new system he had found on xarchie...yes, mp3 !

Then no mp3s until 1997 when I found a webpage on Dalida with a few songs (at 192 Kbps with excellent encoding !). I still have them since I have the originals.

Benefits of Broadband

[anon*127.0.0.1]

I had just installed our new cable modem the previous day, over my wifes mild objections. She just wasn't convinced that we needed all that speed.

Her best friend was visiting, and they were talking about this new song they'd heard on the drive over - "Sugar" by System of a Down. While they were arguing about whether they should buy the CD just to get that song, I went to my newly-installed Napster, downloaded it, and cranked the speakers.

They spent the next two hours remembering songs and asking me to download them. I went the next day to buy a router so that my wife could share the broadband connection on her computer. She bought the SOAD CD because she loved all their songs. I took her to see them live in Austin a year or so later.

And no more arguments that we didn't need all that bandwidth.

"Winamp, Winamp..It really kicks the llama's ass."

[xagon7]

Yeah.. my first mp3 has to be the one that came with winamp.

Re:Should I answer the truth ?

[einTier]

I can't remember the first I personally downloaded, but I do remember the first I heard.

I was working at an ISP, in late 1996. A friend ushered me into a backroom where he had set up a computer with winamp, and showed me what he had just downloaded -- Alice in Chains' Man in the Box.

I really didn't comprehend what I was seeing. It didn't make much sense to me. I owned the CD, and I could easily listen to it on a computer, and four megabytes was a huge amount of space back then. The drive I had in my computer could have held maybe a hundred MP3s before being filled. I couldn't put it on a floppy, and CD burners weren't common yet. The only way to transfer these things was with a fast connection, like the one the office had and I didn't. Files were hard to find. To say I was underwhelmed was putting it mildly.

All that changed within a year. I ran several web based MP3 sites, and I even got a letter from the RIAA for one of my sites because it was hosting nearly two gigs of Tori Amos mp3s, came up first in altavista for "MP3 AND Tori Amos", and was doing about 10 GB in traffic a day. The letter is almost comical today, because they really didn't know the legality then and didn't know how big MP3s would become. I was lucky. Had I done it just a year later, I probably would have been sued.

If anyone ever downloaded mp3s from oubliette.org or oubliette.ml.org, just wanted to say thanks for the memories!