Do yourself a favor.
DO NOT DOWNLOAD iTUNES 8. Why?
The Genius Sidebar. Apple has taken what was quite possibly the best free program on the net, and google-fied it. And not in a fun way. Then it applied to its newest not-new functionality the most overused word of our generation. Yes, you can hide it of course, but the idea is that it's there to make playlists for you based on what you're listening to (which almost never works in any form I've seen it) and then suggest things for you to buy. Surprise! You are no longer an informed, thinking or even self sufficient customer. You are a consumer.
Quite possibly the most depressing thing is that the newest view they've come up with is just a souped up version of an old fiend you know very well, from back in the old days when you had no choice but to use it, and which now appears to be reborn in a 12th edition developed by its competitor:
Windows Media Player. Thou glorious handle suffocates our throat.
Artist/Album thumbnails?? Yes, perhaps Apple is being aggressive, perhaps it's decided that the only way to convert the lumbering masses still not paying tribute to its ripe fruitiness is to bait them with adventures a la Beowulf. Insert thou doctrine along familiar lines and indoctrinate. But, unfortunately, it's made an independent user like me flee to a mountain in Norway to reassert my Viking roots.
Apple, this upside down cross is for you.
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