So now that we're kindasorta back and everything, are we ever gonna cover something that isn't directly related to Apple's big digital music push? Well, yeah, of course... just not today. Because whatever technical glitches we've encountered with the iTunes Music Store and whatever nagging reservations still linger in our paranoid little skulls about Apple's digital rights management scheme ("Yeah, but what if someday the fate of the entire world rests entirely on our ability to burn that one playlist eleven times? Lives hang in the balance, people!"), the fact of the matter is, ultimately we think that iTunes 4's new integrated music purchasing system is the bee's knees. Possibly also said bee's shins and most of its ankle area. We complain about these little niggling problems merely because we care. That, and because we like to complain a lot.

That's not to say that Apple won't eventually smooth out most of the bigger wrinkles with its Big Honkin' Flatiron o' Love; as the service matures, we expect we'll only dig it more and more. For instance, right now the single biggest obstacle preventing us from firing up iTunes and incurring credit card debt so massive the banks would need to invent more numbers just to send us the bill is the store's selection. Granted, two hundred thousand songs is a whole lotta shakin' goin' on (although it sounds like less when you consider that you could buy every track the store offers and stash them all on a mere 27 iPods if you happened to have an extra $212 grand burning a hole in your pocket), but since 100% of that music stems entirely from major labels, there's an awful lot of great stuff on smaller and independent labels that's conspicuously absent.

But hopefully not for long. MacRumors reports that indie labels are chafing themselves silly to climb on the 99 cent download truck, and for good reason: getting their music out in front of every iTunes 4 user probably represents an audience increase of several orders of magnitude for lots of these folks, and that potential audience will balloon still more when Apple rolls out the Windows version of the iTunes Music Store by the end of this year, as El Stevo promised in Monday's hype session. Furthermore, Apple apparently has every intention of adding indie content in the future. MacRumors links to a TIME interview with Steve Jobs in which Fearless Leader comes right out and says that, yes, independent labels will be coming soon: "Now we're really going to have time to focus on a lot of the independents and that will be really great." (Incidentally, it's one heckuvan entertaining interview, as per Steve's usual; you just gotta love it when he rants that a prominent subscription-based digital music service "sucks." Twice.)

So if you're all over the iTunes Music Store experience but your tastes run more to lower-traffic stuff (like, say, Alkaline Trio and Jets To Brazil instead of *NSYNC and Christina Aguilera), be patient. And keep a little space reserved on that credit card.