Highway To Sell: AC/DC iTunes Snub Finally Over

Hugh Pickens "The LA Times reports that after years of stubbornly arguing that iTunes was, in the words of singer Brian Johnson, 'going to kill music if they're not careful,' AC/DC has reached a deal with Apple to sell its entire catalog — 16 studio albums, four live albums and three compilations — through the service. AC/DC was one of the last high-profile holdouts from the digital music marketplace, outlasting the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd, all of which jumped into the realm long after much of the population had accepted the downloading future. Angus Young, AC/DC's lead guitarist (known for wearing a schoolboy's uniform when performing), had long argued against hawking the band's music because he didn't like the idea of allowing for individual song downloads — submitting that the group's albums were designed to be listened to from beginning to end. 'It's like an artist who does a painting,' he said in 2008. 'If he thinks it's a great piece of work, he protects it. It's the same thing: This is our work.'"

Comments

Individual Song Downloads

[Anonymous Coward]

He's against it because all AC/DC songs sound exactly the same. Download one and you've got them all.

It follows this pattern:

NAME OF THE SONG!!!!
you got me singing
NAME OF THE SONG!!!!
now you're listening to
NAME OF THE SONG!!!!

Re:Individual Song Downloads

[jdray]

Furthermore, he doesn't seem to object to radio play of single songs. Consumption is consumption.

Re:Individual Song Downloads

[mcgrew]

That's not how it worked. When this music was new, we had vinyl records. No remote control, no "skip" button. You put the record on the turntable, pit the needle in the groove, and listened. No way to mix up the tracks short of making a mix tape.

Dark Side of the Moon was one of these, and it wasn't designed to be listened to like you listen to a CD; when side 1 was over, you walked to the turntable, turned the record over, and played side two. DSOM doesn't really work well as a single track, but as two tracks.

However, ACDC is full of shit on this one. Their songs were never meant to be listened to in any particular order, and in fact that cassettes often had the songs in a different order than the LP, unlike DSOM, Magical Mystery Tour, Tommie, etc.

Begining to end???

[superdave80]

...submitting that the group's albums were designed to be listened to from beginning to end

So, where was all the outrage when radio stations were playing one song at a time? You know, the one or two good songs that people actually wanted to listen to?

Re:Begining to end???

[TheRaven64]

The songs played on the radios were regarded by the bands as adverts (see: payola), and as such they didn't want to play the whole album because they wanted people to have to buy it to listen to the whole thing. The individual songs played on the radio were regarded as previews, not as complete works in themselves. In contrast, a downloaded track is regarded as a complete work by the band. No one complains that film previews contain scenes out of order, or that book previews only contain the first chapter, but the creators of both would strongly object to the idea of selling films by the scene[1] or books by the chapter.

[1] Certain Hollywood companies, however, would be very much in favour of this if they thought that they could get people to pay more that way.

Re:Begining to end???

[tilante]

Funny, then, how AC/DC has released 52 singles in the course of their career... the most recent in 2011. You'd think that if they didn't want people to buy single songs, they wouldn't make singles....

Re:Begining to end???

[Pope]

More like, where was all the outrage when AC/DC were selling 45s and other singles?

Too late

[Beardo the Bearded]

Hey guys, it's cool that you held out for so long and were all principled, but I've already got copies of most of your work.

I paid somewhat less than what iTunes is suggesting. I guess you win.

Most albums have index marks, unlike Amarok

[tepples]

Vinyl records have index marks where the grooves are more widely spaced. CDs have index marks in the table of contents. If you want to make your album a unit, make it one continuous mix like a Mike Oldfield album.

Re:Most albums have index marks, unlike Amarok

[tlhIngan]

CDs do not specify a pause at all. The pause you're most likely referring to was that moronic burning software from the late 90s early 2000s that had those default options. A player that imposed such a moronic concept on its CDs would destroy the flow of an album like NIN's Pretty Hate Machine, from 1989, among others. Many CDs are mastered with a "quiet" period of approximately a second or so between songs, matching the pauses between songs on LPs, which were the visible areas (widely spaced grooves) so that a person could drop the needle near the beginning of a particular song of interest. There are also LPs where an entire side appears or sounds as one track - I believe side A of Tangerine Dream's Force Majeure and Rush's 2112 were 2 samples, but it's been a long time since I broke out any vinyl.

The track lead-in/leadout (1 second at the beginning, 1 second at the end) is really just a "landing zone" for the read head. A CD head is not particularly accurate - just because you give a HH:MM:SS.ff (frame) in the TOC doesn't mean if you select Track 3, you'll hit it exactly. In fact, you're likely to be quite a ways off. The quiet period simply lets the head be up to a second off either way without accidentally playing back the previous track or cutting into the next track.

Data CDs kept this for the same reason - a multisession CD also has the same limitation (each new session "patches" the prevoius session so it has to seek around and needs a landing zone).

Bad CD burner apps only do "track at once" mode where it writes a track at a time. This means every track requires a mandatory leadin/leadout (and a write to the TOC), and for audio, that means a quiet period of about a second. If you master in "disc at once" mode, you can lay down tracks with no quiet periods which is how you do "live" CDs with no quiet between songs (the TOC is written at the beginning). TAO does allow you to add tracks at the end, as the disc isn't closed, while DAO tends to force closing of the disc when it's done.

Sometimes shortening the leadout of the disc can give you a few extra MB of storage

For those about to post we SALUTE you!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a fast machine, she kept her buffers clean
Was the biggest damn kernel that I ever seen
It wasn't crap from Fry's or a Rasberry Pi
Knocking me out with those solid state drives

Bootin up from the share, fast as a mac book air

Looked for the root folder but I was already there

The case started shaking, doom started quaking

My mind was aching, we were making it

And you shook me all night long

Yeah, you shook me all night long

No longer relevant

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry guys, your work was good 20-30 years ago, but most of us don't care anymore.

And the few of us who do care already have your stuff on CD and can rip it ourselves, or buy a used CD and rip that.

Violating the sanctity of "Givin the Dog a Bone"

[T.E.D.]

— submitting that the group's albums were designed to be listened to from beginning to end.

I could easily see that argument for a Pink Floyd album, but AC/DC? Really?

I mean, seriously. This is from a fan. I've probably listened to the Back in Black album straight through cover to cover more than all but two or three people walking this earth, band members included. I'd agree that the song ordering on there is probably better than a random one would be (note: the "Title track" leads off side 2 rather than 1, which is interesting, but it works).

But would I ever sit down and argue with someone that its a travesty to listen to "Shake a Leg" without following it up immediately with "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution"? Hell no! Just listen to it and enjoy.

Re:hold out?

[Aardpig]

Shut the fuck up, Donny! V.I. Lenin. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov!