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?"

My First Time...

[Retribution]

I think I lost my MP3 virginity to EMF - Unbelievable. Nothing special about it, just the first download that succeeded. The file was full of those skips and bleep-blip sounds that plagued the early days of MP3s. And yes, after some testing of different players for about an hour or two, I settled on Winamp. Still use Winamp now, though I'm also enjoying iTunes.

Now, so many years down the road, and surprisingly most of my music collection is legal. I think that's more a function of being employed as opposed to a poor college student, but it could be due to other factors as well.

Here's an interesting perspective for you, though... When you look at the technology we were using in 1997 (I got my first MP3 in September of '97, I think... maybe October), I for one had a 3G hard drive. It was huge, and I was so proud. Now, in 2004, my laptop has 10 times that, and my desktop 30 times that. Also, DVD+/-Rs are becoming more popular, and they have about 10x the space of an old CD-R (I'm talking 640megs). Furthermore, these days I'm typically wired to a 100baseT network instead of a 10baseT, not to mention I'm on DSL as opposed to dialup when I'm at home. What am I getting at? Today, if you wanted to share and store uncompressed 44kHz stereo wave files, at least relative to the technology available now they are SMALLER than MP3s were back then. I can fit more wave files on my computer now than I could fit mp3s then, and I can download waves faster now than I could download mp3s then... It's all about perspective.

Tell me that's not amusing, I dare ya. :)

Audiogalaxy

[Sklivvz]

I can't remember which MP3 I downloaded first, but I do remember having a great time with Audiogalaxy [audiogalaxy.com]. It was the best MP3 download system ever, since it let me queue up MP3s (many legal ones too!) via a Web interface, and the application would fetch this list and get it for me. In simple words, choose at home and have it done in the morning at work. At those times I only had V90 at home, but Fiber at work... :-)

My band [powersymphony.com] is an official contributor to Audiogalaxy, you can still get 3 songs for free [audiogalaxy.com]! Sorry for the shameless plug (do I smell karma burning? =)

Re:Audiogalaxy

[funkhauser]

Yes! Audiogalaxy was great. To this day, I haven't downloaded as many MP3s as I did with Audiogalaxy. I'd queue up songs in the computer lab at my high school and they'd be done by the time I got home. It has truly been lean times since the days of Audiogalaxy.

Re:Scour!

[MalleusEBHC]

27-0
52-21
47-22

I suggest you delete that mp3 and start singing this song:

Fight On for 'ol SC
Our men Fight On to victory.
Our Alma Mater dear, looks up to you
Fight On and win For 'ol SC
Fight On to victory Fight On!

Re:Noam Chomsky lecture

[Gothmolly]

Maybe it's because he has little of value to say, that the compression algorithms were able to compress it so well?

Something by Creed...

[SilentT]

I think it was Higher, but it may have been With Arms Wide Open. In defense of P2P networks: I had heard Creed was a good band but because I rarely listened to the radio I had never heard any of their stuff. After downloading a few of their songs off Napster I went out and bought Human Clay. I now own a copy of every CD they've released.