MetaChat - Why won't Willie Nelson and iTunes play nice with each other?

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29 March 2009

Why won't Willie Nelson and iTunes play nice with each other? I was incredibly excited to find the new 4-disc Willie Nelson set used (so therefore at half price!) last night. All the discs play fine on my car CD player. But iTunes is a whole 'nother story...→[More:]
iTunes won't even read any of the discs, much less allow me to import them -- the little wheel just spins endlessly, and the drive makes scary gronky noises, and eventually the whole thing freezes and I have to force quit.

iTunes isn't having any other problems reading/playing other discs (including the other ones I bought last night), and the Willie Nelson discs all play fine in all the non-computer CD players I've tested them on. So what does my stupid Mac have against the Red-Headed Stranger? (Perhaps its heroes have never been cowboys.)

post by: scody at: 17:27 | 4 comments

Does the CD play in other software? Will it play in Quicktime or VLC? Does it show up in the list of drives (PC) or mount on the desktop (Mac)? Does it say anything on the package about DRM that is used? I have had this also happen on random cds. I have no solution. However, I will use this opportunity to link to my cover version of "My Heroes Has Always Been Cowboys"

posted by chillmost 29 March | 18:04

Is it really a CD? Is it perhaps just a copy-protected 12cm optical disc? Look on the back cover for an actual CD logo.

I can't recall the name of the scheme, but just about every Asian Dub Foundation CD comes with a 'copy controlled' or somesuch logo, where the "Compact Disc - Digital Audio" logo should be - showing that it's not technically a CD, and is designed to fail in computer drives.

I'd try opening it up in something like Audacity, and using that to save to AIFF or WAV or FLAC or MP3 or whatever you'd usually use.

posted by pompomtom 29 March | 18:55

It's because iTunes is an idiot.

posted by mudpuppie 29 March | 19:25

Yes, itunes is totally idiotic.

chillmost helped me stumble upon the (inexplicable) solution: even as the drive continued to make gronky noises as itunes attempted (and failed) to read it, the disc did indeed eventually show up on the desktop -- but only as "Audio CD." So I clicked on the icon, which opened a folder with all the individual audio files (just listed as "Audio File 1," "Audio File 2," and so on). Then, when I clicked on each audio file, it gave me the option to preview the track. When I clicked on "yes," THEN it triggered the name of the track to appear in iTunes, at which point I could import it.

So I guess I have to do this 100 times, to import each song individually. Thanks, itunes! YOU SUCK. But at least I can now get my Willie Nelson fix, even if it's slow-going.

(Oh, and sincere thanks to chillmost -- I LOVE your cover of "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys," and your story of being in your grandfather's truck singing "Whiskey River"! My story is being in my grandfather's jeep, bouncing along in the back singing "Mammas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys." Ah, the glorious '70s!)

posted by scody 30 March | 01:28

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