Slashdot Mirror
Online Music Brings New Life To Old Music
Rick Zeman writes to tell us The Washington Post has a look at how online music has helped to revitalize eclectic or out of print music. From the article: " Because the Internet has changed how people discover and share music, the rules of marketing it and the hierarchy of who determines what's hot have also changed. As radio-music listenership declines, the industry finds itself spending more time courting a broader field of tastemakers who, through Web sites, are popularizing songs that never get radio play. The primary tool in this transition is the playlist -- a sequence of tracks posted on blogs or shared on music purchase sites such as iTunes.
Not just that, but also 'about 2,700 albums have been brought back through the Vault, with more than 5,000 scheduled to follow' with those albums not having enough demand to justify another printing."
Just how much "demand" does it take?
You'd offer them for sale, on-line. There's no distribution costs.
And you wouldn't even need to keep them in stock. Just charge enough to cover printing the inserts and burning the CD. All of the costs are passed on to the buyer. It's pure profit. The "advertising" would be done by the "blogs" mentioned.
A great site I found a couple of years ago is http://english.sovmusic.ru/ . It's got thousands of mp3s taken from Soviet LPs and such, going back to the 1930s. Really amazing stuff. And it's run by a communist with a real to-each-according-to-his-need point of view, so everything there is free to download.
= saintwar
If you want an idea of the mentality in Russa after the fascists attacked, listen to this:
http://www.sovmusic.ru/english/download.php?fname
"The primary tool in this transition is the playlist"
So how long will it be before someone cries foul, waves a 'playlist' patent and tries to make a dishonest buck out of this?
Stupid idea perhaps, but my god if there haven't been some godawful 'patents' showing upand causing trouble of late.
I'll go back to the cynics corner now....
Check out bluebeat. It's the best music service nobody every heard of for depth of catalog.
It has all the music from 1910 wax cylinder recordings, 1920 and 30's delta blues, ragtime etc. up to the most current hits. Best of all its currently free. (Free for windows users that is.) At 320k it's something you do want to hook up to your stereo. Anybody found anything that comes even close?
SHORT VERSION: My company is one of the back-end providers of music to Apple iTunes, EMusic, Rhapsody, and all the other digital music services. But we sell/distribute ONLY independent music directly from the artists - no record labels.
When our sales reports started coming back from Apple, I was stumped. They were artists I had never heard of. I assumed it would be our top-sellers in the physical-CD world, but instead we had artists who had only sold 2 CDs, ever, selling $5000 in downloads.
It took a lot of research, but I figured it out : all of the top-selling albums in the digital music services were albums with cover songs. Often selling their full-album if they had even one cover song on it, which means that strangers were finding them because of that cover song, then liking their original music so much they bought the whole thing.
I'm advising all musicians I know to include one good creative (not-too-covered, not-too-obscure) cover song on their future albums, to help call attention to it in this song-based search world.
As a first step to experiencing this universal availability the purveyors of the various works will pay sites that manage to attract a profitable slice of people seeking to experience a new (or old) genre.These 'cool people' who act as conduits to rediscovered works should be pushed aside when search engines can easily provide stepping stones from work/artist to another. For example there are major works by J. Hydan, Mozart and Beethoven that each draw on the same musical source, (I believe it's Mozart's 40th, Beethoven's 5th and a source work from Hydan I can't immediately recall). Once the web is in full swing a neophyte to any genre will be able to hop, skip and jump through the various tenuous associated works with an ease that unthinkable before the web.
I've posted in the past that the best way to circumvent the attacks of copyright holders on the open imaginative playground that is the web is to float on the web the entirety of folklore in terms of folk music and folktales that would present an ocean of prior art from which most modern works have drawn their inspriation.
The web in a way becomes the framework for players of Das Glasperlenspiel.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
This sounds great to me, although not exactly a new thing. If you haven't read about the "Long Tail" phenomenon you might be interested in these two articles:
l
Chris Anderson's article in Wired: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.htm
A Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail
Most people DON'T realize that punk (no I don't mean Green Day.. think SST records, anything through Blacklist Mailorder from MRR...etc) a lot of music was/is only available on 7 inch vinyl. Because the young uns today don't know what a reecord is.. (it's what we all listened to before CDs).
Digitizing this stuff in not only a way to preserve it but to also turn the kids on what started a lot today's great bands because today's kids always need edumacatin' about music. (Well every generation does in it's time)
Apple iMS promises to sell very soon - AAC coded to analogue format.
I suggest you read Slashdot
I can do something with my collection of eight-track tapes.
In the case of the local band, they only have a few different albums (if they even have more than one). This means that they don't have to hedge their bets on which albums are going to sell and which aren't. Add to this the fact that the band can be reasonably sure that the people buying the discs at their shows were there to hear that band play in the first place.
It really doesn't compare.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
As radio-music listenership declines, the industry finds itself spending more time courting a broader field of tastemakers who, through Web sites, are popularizing songs that never get radio play.
If only the radio industry could begin to realize that people do *NOT* like to listen to the same 7 songs over and over again throughout the day with the occasional "older" song thrown in to attempt to trick everyone.
If they could instead harness what we really want to hear (podcasts, *true* variety (across genres and decades), and less pointless commercials). It's obvious, through the success of podcasting and sat radio, that the formats they have been using in the past are done.
It's amazing to me that they are so slow to adapt as they watch their numbers fall.
It could easily be feasible on a "tipping point" system. As soon as that 100th copy is ordered, the lot is pressed and shipped out. Consumers could then provide further advertising by lobbying their contacts to also order the album knowing they would only get theirs when 100 copies have been ordered. In a global market place, 100 copies of a release is nothing...a drop. And yet, knowing all these will be purchased results in zero risk of recoup for the manufacturer/distributer.
Pandering to the lowest common denominator would be less frequent if more people were prime numbers.
I'm advising all musicians I know to include one good creative (not-too-covered, not-too-obscure) cover song on their future albums, to help call attention to it in this song-based search world.
.mp3, of course).
This is VERY good advice. I bought The Ataris' So Long, Astoria *specifically* because of the well-done cover of Don Henley's "Boys of Summer" it had. Turns out the rest of the album was pretty good, and it remains planted on my playlist (after the requisite ripping to 320K
"I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very least he can do is to shut up." -- Tom Lehrer
It's my opinion that every song ever recorded should be available via digital distribution. The main thing keeping this from happening is that it is virtually impossible to get all the companies that own the majority of rights to recordings to come to an agreement on anything. Although I have no solution to that particular fiasco, I think a great way to price things would be on with a sliding scale that puts a premium on popularity. A good part of the revenue from current downloads is from the top couple hundred most popular. Now if the cost of those was pushed up to $2-3, it would allow for download of more obscure tunes for pennies. Thos out-of-print, "unpopular" songs cannot support premium pricing; but, seeing as they are unavailable in stores, (not profitable enough to waste the shelf space) ANY income that they do generate is purely gravy. Now if a particular song experiences a resurgence based on new attention, this upswing in popularity would be reason enough to bump it into a higher cost bracket. Now maybe it costs $.25 to buy instead of $.05. Prices could be adjusted weekly (or some other increment) with the most popular song costing maybe $3-4 and the least being like $.05. I think this would be a huge incentive to legally download songs and the owners would make scads more money than they already do. It could also be interesting how playing the market might develop wherein there would be runs on songs to drive up the price, hedging that you could get a song cheaper in a week or two, and all the other fun stuff that comes from dealing in a regulated market.
Pandering to the lowest common denominator would be less frequent if more people were prime numbers.
I have far more than that number in my personal collection and don't plan to stop buying vinyl any time in the foreseeable future. There's just too much good music out there. And another 5000 albums they're going to add still doesn't scratch the surface (pun intended) as to what's available. And guess what, LPs continue to sell reasonably well even though it's a niche market, while CD sales have dropped. There is always a demand for quality, and MP3s are just the opposite. Back in the early 80s the CD was supposed to be 'perfect sound forever', and we know all too well that's not true, otherwise DVD-A and SACD wouldn't exist.
Gibson touched on this issue (the diminishing temporal correlation between artists and their fan-base) in his 1996 novel, Idoru.
As much as I want access to new classics to discover I dread re-buying my cassettes in DRM'ed low bitrate lossy files. Normal Apple Lossless files are all I ask...I'm already intrigued but I have no interest in ever buying this material again and there's no reason in the world why I need to accept lower quality when much better is possible (they are indeed using the source materials many times when converting these files).
the "general public" doesn't seem to REALLY want as much variety as they pay lip-service to wanting. ... , ask [a friend] if they can name 20 or 30 bands (or even songs!) that they wish their favorite station would add to their playlist. My guess is, most people will be able to name maybe 3-5 and then draw a blank... or else their list will consist of music very similar to what's already being played.
The poor service your friends receive is not indicate narrow tastes. You can't discover what you like if you are never exposed to it and the way the RIAA world works, you will never be exposed to much outside a few "target" audience cities. To really get a feel for how broad people's tastes are, you have to understand what's wrong and what others have done to fix the problem. The way you are looking at it is insulting and does your friends a big disservice.
First, why radio music sucks so hard. The RIAA charges so much for the few songs they let radio stations play that the average station can only have a thousand or two songs on hand, and they have to be vetted carefully. How are they vetted? From sales in "target" cities. Most radio stations won't take any risks with anything but sales prooven music. Notice the catch was the high price to begin with. Between the $500,000 FCC license fee and RIAA music fee's the broadcaster does not have much choice either. As downhill battle points out, the money is NOT going to the artists. Yeah, the result can narrow your friends music tastes - appreciation comes from experience and the rude are well .... rude.
Now what's been done that's different? Plenty! and that's what the article is all about, though they seem to have forgotten all about the pioneers. Exposure is easy when you share your playlists. Napster, MP3.com and anyone who got into online content distribution in the 90's understood this. People's tastes are much much broader than the old RIAA model could ever support - that's why they killed all the early music services and are desperate to take over the entire internet and your personal computer. Decentralized distribution will put power and money back into artist's hands and local labels. The Big Three Music Publishers are fighting for their lives.
Don't believe that people's tastes really broaden when they are given choices and guidance? Ask the people at net flicks how many of the entire 60,000 DVD library is rented out on any given day. Think 1,000? You are off by factor of three ... and an order magnitude. That's right, more than half of the catalog is rented every day! People's demand for variety is something physical distribution can not keep up with.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
In any case, the argument about pressed CDs being longer-lasting is moot. I am very picky about storing and handling my CDs properly in order to minimise damage, but I have noticed a number of pressed full-price discs in my collection have become degraded enough over a 10 year period to cause skipping. So far, fortunately nothing so bad that it can't be recovered with cdparanoia and burnt on to a blank.
This is still, in fact, illegal here (Australia) but I don't care. If anybody cares to argue with me about it, they had better be prepared to expect some injuries.
In any case, I also have a lot of home-burned CDs which have given me no trouble at all over the same period or longer.
Hey, it's an interesting archive of historical documents. Although I don't agree with the politics, I still find this sort of stuff fascinating...
deus does not exist but if he does
Too bad CD Baby won't take care of the accounting when it comes to cover songs. Last time I checked the Harry Fox Agency wanted monthly statements for online sales of covers. This can be a pain in the ass for the small band who doesn't have someone doing their books full-time. Pressing discs and paying royalties is easy--make a thousand discs, pay $X to Harry Fox up front and you're covered for those discs. CD Baby is doing a great job of getting discs out there, and I think the idea of them being the middleman with the online distributors is good too. But the actual mechanics necessary to play by the books with the accountants and lawyers when it comes to distribution of covers still needs a lot of work.
This sig intentionally left justified.
This is still, in fact, illegal here (Australia) but I don't care. If anybody cares to argue with me about it, they had better be prepared to expect some injuries.
So backing up your disc is illegal in Australia but injuring someone who disagrees with you is not?
Chris Anderson of Wired magazine describes this as the "Long Tail Effect", where the availability of search engines and easy means to get at obscure material, be it music, books or whatever, opens up previously unavailable markets. He's even written a book about it. It just baffles me why the RIAA and MPAA have pursued the policies they have in terms of very aggressive enforcement against end users, when the technologies these people use have actually led to independent and obscure artists getting more exposure! I am 100% in favour of the artists getting paid for their work, but perhaps it's time for the old media companies to address their business models and move with the times?
If they want go after someone, go after the pirated media industry in Asia. I live in SE Asia and I can tell you that it's harder to get a legal copy of a DVD or CD than it is an illegal one. That's arse backwards. They could start by making iTunes and their competitors available here. That might make a difference. And perhaps pressuring the governments to better enforce IP and copyright law (that they have signed international treaties on).
"The fun of collecting is gone," said Michael Crowley, who said he spent his childhood hunting for bootlegged copies of obscure acts in hidden-away record shops run by edgy people with nose rings. "They're not that fun if you can download them with a few mouse clicks," said Crowley, a Washington journalist who wrote about the rock snob's demise by digital music for the New Republic.
I don't find this to be true at all. There's plenty of obscure albums which I remain unable to find on bittorrent, despite continued effort. Every so often, I find one.
If I were paying, it might be another matter. But that's a different discussion altogether.
There's still a hunt, still an effort needed, it's just moved down the long tail as more and more music is made available online.
The whole "orphaned works" problem is a special case of this phenomenon.
It also encourages piracy. A few weeks ago I was looking for a particular piece of foreign music from the early 90s. I searched lots of stores, both used and new, for a copy of the album in question. A few stores had it in their listings but, you guessed it, "out of print." I wasted hours looking for a legitimate copy of the music. Then I went to a pirate MP3 search engine and found it within minutes. If there were some way for me to buy it, I would. (I have no good way of tracking down the artist to send her a small payment.) I was fully ready to pay import CD prices to get it. And if it should come back into print at some point, I will buy it. Meanwhile, I get to enjoy it thanks to piracy.
Now, I'm sure someone will tell me how I'm robbing the artist here, getting a copy of her song without her permission -- but do you honestly think most out-of-print musicians say, "I'm so glad nobody can get my music any more! When I signed that contract for my album I really hoped the publisher would stop selling it some day. I'd rather nobody listen to my old music than someone listen to it when there's no way for them to pay me."
Of course, manufacturing costs would probably be prohibitive for large pressings but with digital distribution and one-off pressing, there's some money to be made. Incidentally, I checked on iTunes music store and was surprised to find a large part of his discography available. To boot, most of the albums were less than $8, a surprise considering I thought all albums were at least 9.99. I also was surprised by their "collections" service, which is a type of curated playlist. The breakbeat collection, at least was fairly extensive. I may wind up going with iTMS but would prefer unencumbered Mp3s. Actually, considering I've already downloaded most of the MP3s, I just wish there was a simple escrow service where I could toss some bucks directly to the artist--consider it a hat on a digital street ; )
harmonious design
While we're on (or off) the topic, can you shine some light onto why all the major online music stores sell music sampled at 128kbps?
Keep in mind that 128kbps AAC is higher quality than 128kbps MP3, so if you're avoiding the iTunes Music Store because you don't like the sound of 128kbps MP3s, I suggest you try downloading some of the free tracks they offer (look in the bottom left corner of the home page, new free songs released every Tuesday). You can do this without giving them any credit card information, although you do have to register with a valid e-mail address.
Of course if you've heard 128kbps AAC and aren't satisfied, then I fully agree that you shouldn't send them your money.
To answer your question, the reasons Apple and their competitors offer compressed music are:
1) smaller files use less bandwidth for the user to download, therefore costing Apple less money
2) smaller files take less time to download, so the user gets closer to instant gratification
3) smaller files take up less space on disk, which isn't really significant on most desktop computers but is quite significant on portable media players such as iPods
4) the average person doesn't notice an audible difference between 128kbps AAC and lossless
Given #4, the demand for higher quality really isn't as strong as you expect, especially in light of #2 and #3. Throw in #1, and it's a no-brainer.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Turns out the rest of the album was pretty good, and it remains planted on my playlist (after the requisite ripping to 320K .mp3, of course).
I hope you understand that if you bought a 128kbps AAC file, then re-encoded it as 320kbps MP3, the resulting MP3 file will be WORSE quality than the original AAC file (in adition to being 2.5 times the file size). Interoperability is the only valid reason for doing this; if that's why you're doing it, carry on.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I tried to find a way to send this privately, but no-go. Just wanted to thank you for mentioning the Ataris " Boys of Summer". I'd never heard that version before, but the Henly version is one of my fave tracks. You've just scored another Ataris convert - purchased the album a few minutes ago. No, the RIAA must be correct - music downloads don't have any impact on music purchases... ;-)>
He's spot on. I downloaded a truck load of music recently (just felt the urge), probably less that 20% of it was from this century with many of the songs going back as far as the 60's (long(ish) before I was born). With online downloads available I can get all the great tunes that make up my tape collection (remember tapes[cassettes]? No?). And it ain't just old stuff, a lot of what I buy online I just can't get at my local stores because it's not popular enough.
And I hope you understand that I actually - gasp! - bought the CD and ripped and encoded it all by myself. I know, I know - it was a moment of weakness, and I really hate myself for having done it. I'll try not to let it happen again</sarcasm>
Seriously, though, I have no regrets having bought this album or any others out of the small handful of original, pressed, expensive CDs I've purchased in the last few years. But in almost each and every case, I've come across the tracks online somewhere, downloaded them and given them a test listen before the cashola left my pockets. If the RIAA had their way, I'd be out several million dollars in legal penalties, and maybe behind bars. I just don't get that.
Back to the original point. Bands that are getting started and want exposure: pick a good cover song, and include it alongside your original material. You WILL get more attention that way. Just do us all a favor, and don't destroy the memory of the original by doing such a fantastically bad job of covering it that we end up hating both your version and the original as a result! Case in point - Marilyn Manson's "Sweet Dreams (are Made of This)". If you enjoy the original, for the love of god, don't listen to this "cover".
"I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very least he can do is to shut up." -- Tom Lehrer
The ability to legally time-shift, format-shift and backup was made legal last month in Australia.
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge, and where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"-T.S.Eliot