dear sony records, thanks for nothing.

so i'm pretty frustrated right now. it's very few and far between that i get super excited giddy stoked for the drop of a new album, even in rarer form that i listen to the album before it's release to DEATH and not only am i not sick of it, but i'm physically craving my next spin. it's been 7 long years since my sultry heroine miss fiona apple dropped extraordinary machine, and i've been patiently and eagerly waiting. it's bogus enough that apple had this record written and recorded for years, but had a delayed release due to politics with her label sony, but now that it's finally here, i figured who gives a shit. fiona rules. her new album is a masterpiece. yay, everybody wins.

my darling husband picked up a copy of the idler wheel for me this afternoon at reckless records. to my squealing delight, he texted me a confirmation that yes, it came with a free digital download. so i can finally appease my craving for such addictive tracks as werewolf and hot knife on my morning commute, not to mention finally play the shit out of this record on my weekly radio show at chirp.

however, as soon as i got home (in the blistering 90+ degree mugginess that is chicago this afternoon), i eagerly unwrapped the cellophane from the vinyl square, dug out the digital download code (b/c let's face it, i'm camping out in the bedroom with a/c tonite, not going anywhere near the record player in the humid living room), so i can anxiously download my new treasures on my ipod, ready for tomorrow's dreary workday. then the link comes up reading:

So, as it turns out...

The page you were looking for cannot be found.

 wtf, right? we paid our $19.99 to support a hard working, talented musician the legal and ethical way. i have enough contacts in the industry where i can cop pretty much whatever release i want for free, or tactics to hunt down the leak illegally, but guess what. i want to support this artist. this album is a piece of art. but fuck you, sony records, not only for distributing faulty codes, or for not anticipating  that 'oh shit, fiona has more fans than we realized, guess we should have backed up our servers for this,' or for having ANY GODDAMN LINKS ONLINE FROM OTHER USERS EXPERIENCING THE SAME TECHNICAL BULLSHIT DIFFICULTIES. ok, guess what guys - homegirl's about to get her period and it's too hot to eat icecream without it melting all over myself. so please, for the love of all things holy, do not deprive me of my fiona.

i'm posting this rant mostly to get the frustration off my chest, but also to show love for a stellar album, but mainly, b/c i didn't see shit when i googled the hell out of this glitch to see if it's happening for other users. seriously, is noone else getting this?? i did get sent to a link that says i can 'contact customer support,' to which point i'm directed to a generic email form (not a phone number, conveniently enough), that assures me that myplay does their best to respond within 24 hours.

bottom line is this - don't sell a product if you can't deliver. terrible customer service such as sony's with their myplay site will only deter me from purchasing physical albums, already a dying species on its way to extinction, and relying solely on the digital format - either legally or illegally, but i sure as fuck am not going to give sony another penny of mine until they get their shit together.

you want a werewolf? i'll give you a werewolf.grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

sincerely,
one extremely rattled fiona apple fan