Slashdot Mirror

I read an interview with a guy from a studio, and he defended the high price of CDs: the price is fair because it's really hard to be a studio; you have to try to find new acts, and when you guess wrong, a whole bunch of CDs go into a landfill. Well, guess what: on the Internet, you can just provide the music, and if nobody likes it, it will just sit there; and if people do like it, you make pure profit. No CDs need be produced and then landfilled.

No offense intended but you completely misunderstood the guys point. Pressing CDs is cheap. "Throwing them in the landfill" was a metaphor for "losing the money invested" not for actually throwing away pieces of metal and plastic. The cost of producing a CD is mostly in the production, studio time, paying the people to sit around and compose all day, then the marketing costs needed to tell the world about this new act they might like. If the guess is wrong, that money is lost.

The future of music is: everything available on the Internet, at lower prices than if you buy CDs. Most artists will not bother to sign their fortunes over to big record studios; they will retain control of their music, and deal more directly with the customers.

Well we'd like to think that wouldn't we. But it doesn't actually seem to be going that way. What's the first thing all these bands that got big on MySpace did? Ah right, sign with a label. I listen to a lot of net radio, especially BassDrive. I heard a great track there the other day. Once I finally tracked it down, it turned out that it's unsigned. That means you can't buy it anywhere. I asked the producer why he doesn't sell it direct through CDbaby or on his own website, answer:

if you can give me 250 euro. yeah sure xD

no bro .. i only sell my tracks to recordlabels sorry

Huh. So much for the internet revolutionising music. Here is an obscure DnB producer that I found through internet radio, whos website is on MySpace and .... guess what. He only uses the "legacy business model". So though I'd love to see this frustrating and archaic system disappear, I do realize that it fulfills a purpose - musicians don't want to fuck about with distribution. They want to make music and have some semblance of financial stability, with other people absorbing the losses from failures and making it back on the hits.

check out http://bassdrive.com/ it's arguably the best drum n' bass streaming radio and it keeps getting more popular. no ads, just awesome music, 24-7

i cant recall the last time i listened to the "regular" radio for music, i only listen now for news and npr...

I'm glad to see someone exercising discretion in their purchasing; but do you really benefit from rejecting art because you object to the way the medium is produced?

For once in ages I do actually agree with the comments of an AC. Everything that I listen to comes from Proton Radio, Bassdrive, and Di. The major media industry simply doesn't have anything worth listening to/downloading anymore.

but slack off on the second part (don't break the law by downloading them anyway).

Everything that I listen to comes from Proton Radio, Bassdrive, and Di. The major media industry simply doesn't have anything worth listening to/downloading anymore.

But, at the same time, I do advocate civil disobedience as a proper means of fighting laws. Sure, some people get nailed. I think even Martin Luther King spent time in jail.

Wha...? It's lovely. GPRS is only up to about 40kbps, whereas 3G is 128, and up to 384 if the network supports it. I was driving around Bristol with my laptop plugged into my car stereo, bluetooth connection to a 3G phone listening to Bassdrive, and that was summer last year. Being a passenger in a car, and SSHing from a laptop at 80mph into your Linux box at 128kbps to check your mail with mutt is pretty trippy too.

Maybe you'd want listening to online mp3 broadcasts... Almost all online radio stations have forums to discuss what's on air and such; pick up a station you like and you'll see what's playing, and what other listeners like. I suggest:

DigitallyImported (probably the most popular; trance, hard trance, house)
Massinova (eurodance / trance site in which users decide what will play next, with a moderation system for the tracks...)
SomaFM (oops, killed by CARP -- had good Drum'n'Bass)
Tag's Trance Trip (trance -- wait, off the air due to CARP)
XTC Radio (trance and prog house)
Philosomatika (goa and psytrance)
Bassdrive (drum'n'bass)
Xanu (Chillout and lounge)

Has anyone mentioned internet radio as an alternative? Ok, it's broadband only in terms of possible audience... but that doesn't stop me from listening to Bassdrive.com all day, everyday.

Sure it is usually non-mainstream music. Who cares if it doesn't appeal to the widest, most general audience?

The key of internet radio is that you can usually find what you like. I have stations that play early 90's jungle, hard-step, tech-step, garage two-step, jungle-ragga, acid jazz, russian pop/rock, independent US hip-hop, french hard core.

Ok so it might just be me listening to it. Oh, boo-hoo. Either you listen to what you like with the distinct possibility of ostracising yourself from the mainstream, or accept the shill Godsmack/Creed/DMB so you can talk to other folk about music/hit bigger shows with your friends. Of course then you can pay your 400 bucks for a Rolling Stones ticket.

And that is another thing: underground/independent metal, rock, death metal, electronica, detroit house, hip-hop, and jazz have all survived very well without any help of the mainstream. Steve Albini, Martin Adkins, El-P. Sometimes you have to accept that most people aren't looking for what you are serving.

But if you like this kind of thing, this may be the sort of thing you kind of like.

I just looked at all of the CDs (30) I bought in the last 12 months, and all of them were artists I had heard on internet radio. This is mostly stuff off of GrooveSalad or Bassdrive . I live in Dallas, one of the ten largest cities in the nation, and the only electronica I get is 3 hours on saturday night -- and it's mostly house. Without internet radio, there is no way to find out about the smaller bands thus it seems these smaller bands should be irate over this. Perhaps.