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They Might Be Giants Open Their Own Music Store
slothdog writes "They Might Be Giants have opened their own music store, featuring "highest quality" (256kbps LAME) un-DRM-encumbered mp3's. There are only two CDs currently available (at $0.99/song or $9.99/album), but presumably more will be added as time goes on. Looks like a great way to directly support the artists."
Hey, if I can download particle man, then all is good in the world.
Will they be available to customers in Istanbul (not Constantanople)?
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
Music Store man, Music Store man Doing the things a Music Store can What's he like? It's not important Music Store man Is he a dot, or is he a speck? When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead? Nobody knows, Music Store Man Music Store man, Music Store man Music Store man hates Napster man They have a fight, Music Store wins Music Store man I-Tunes man, I-Tunes man Size of the entire universe man Usually kind to smaller man I-Tunes man He's got a watch with a minute hand, Millenium hand and an eon hand When they meet it's a happy land Powerful man, I-Tunes man P2P man, P2P man Hit on the head with a frying pan Lives his life in a garbage can P2P man Is he depressed or is he a mess? Does he feel totally worthless? Who came up with P2P man? Degraded man, P2P man Music Store man, Music Store man Music Store man hates P2P man They have a fight, Music Store wins Music Store man
Clicking on the "You dont have flash - click here for the text version" pops up a TMBG guy telling me "Get flash you hippie"
Way to shame me into it.
My band has given away online tunes free for a couple of years now. At least you can play it through the site, you can probably figure out how to save them with a bit of geekery and craftiness, I am sure.
Despite giving away the music, we get at least a couple of CD sales through the internet every week!
Karma seems to be working in this case, because people often email in and say they heard the band on the radio, loved the music, did a web search, listened to a lot of the tunes, and wanted to own a copy for themselves or as a gift.
Not sure if this will work in 5 years if people don't buy CDs any more, but it's working for us at the moment.
Shameless plug - go to www.oninvisiblewings.com to see what I mean. If you listen to some tunes and decide to buy the album, then you will have proved the theory! A good intoduction the music is A Formidable Marinade.
Regards,
The Baron von Babyface
(with the face of a boy on the body of a middle-aged man)
baron@oninvisiblewings.com
bitch bitch bitch.
p.s. bitch bitch
I have to say the one major hurdle that has steered me away from downloading music from the iTunes and others has been the DRM. I'm sure there's few among this crowd that would disagree. I realize, I could still burn my downloaded music to a CD and do what I please with it, but it's really the principal of the fact.
But my complaint comes out at lossy codecs. Maybe I'm just being too picky, but the less compressed the better. A few years ago I put my whole CD collection in MP3 format for my computer/portable listening enjoyment. All at 160K CBR using XING. Of course, with the availability of an ogg player for my handheld PC, I have converted again much of my CD collection to ogg format for my computer/portable listening enjoyment.
If I hadn't had the uncompressed quality of the CD, I'd be stuck with my older MP3 encoded files. I had heard of a project earlier put forth where the company/band was releasing tracks in multiple formats, including FLAC (curious if anyone has a link or knows what I'm talking about?).
I personally wish that others would go this route--more choice.
I'm done complaining though. Seeing artists walk away from DRM is a great thing. Seeing them recognize the importance of the higher bitrate is also very encouraging. I hope this causes more of a rift between the good bands and the strong arm of the RIAA. It can only be a move in the right direction for consumers.
"God is dead!" - Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is dead!" - God