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MP3.COM signing A. Morissette, T. Amos
Tony Garcia writes "According to this article on USA Today, MP3.COM is
signing deals with Alanis Morissette and Tori
Amos. Seems like "big time" artists are joining
the mp3 wave "Now, if only DJ Shadow and Tom Waits would agree to that-Nirvana reached.
While I'm no big fan of the music industry, I think we all need to sit back and think before carrying this MP3 torch to total revolution. MP3's seem to be a common rallying point among Open Source people but a world dominated by MP3's makes me uncomfortable in several ways:
1) The sound quality is *not* sufficient. Why step-back again? LP's had the widest dynamic range of any mainstream music format, but suffered from limited portability. 8-tracks, cassettes, and yes even CD's have offered less dynamic range for more convenience. It's a shame that most people under 30 are convinced that CD's are the highest quality audio. It was a lame standard to begin with and MP3's really don't even compare to CD's when played on anything more advanced than computer speakers.
2) The artist is *still* losing. Instead of the major record company pimping the artists you now have a bunch of hackers with hard drive space becoming the pimps. Sure MP3.com is a professional organization but we all know where the real traffic for MP3's is: illegal copies of pre-recorded music. For all the terrible things one can say about the record industry, your favorite artist is benefiting much more from you buying the CD than downloading a MP3 copy of it. Before the portable players arrived you could make the argument that illegal MP3's increased CD sales, but now we can bypass the CD completely.
3) The standard is too young and too unstable to support industry acceptance. Granted, this might change soon, but I would hate to reinvest yet again in a new music format that changes as quickly as technology. Music media formats usually last 15-20 years - do you think people will want to listen to crappy sounding MP'3 in 2015? Probably not. But then again would you want to purchase your music collection over again everytime a new version comes out? I realize this is the weakest of my arguments but it still bothers me. Music is timeless, unlike computer programs. The media should be more stable.
With all that said, I'm for shaking up the music industry. I just don't think that MP3's in their current incarnation are the way to go.
1) The sound quality is *not* sufficient. Why step-back again? LP's had the widest dynamic range of any mainstream music format, but suffered from limited portability. 8-tracks, cassettes, and yes even CD's have offered less dynamic range for more convenience. It's a shame that most people under 30 are convinced that CD's are the highest quality audio. It was a lame standard to begin with and MP3's really don't even compare to CD's when played on anything more advanced than computer speakers.
;P _ ________
I'll adress this FUD first, if you are releasing music as MP3 you are not limited by the 44.1 that you are limited to on CD therefore you can actually make an MP3 that is of higher quality than CD. If you care to argue this point I can you spectral analysis of stuff from CD and stuff done digital direct to MP3. I work in the recording/sound industry as a DJ/sound tech/studio musician/and remixer so I have researched this fairly well.
The artist is *still* losing. Instead of the major record company pimping the artists you now have a bunch of hackers with hard drive space becoming the pimps. Sure MP3.com is a professional organization but we all know where the real traffic for MP3's is: illegal copies of pre-recorded music. For all the terrible things one can say about the record industry, your favorite artist is benefiting much more from you buying the CD than downloading a MP3 copy of it. Before the portable players arrived you could make the argument that illegal MP3's increased CD sales, but now we can bypass the CD completely.
FUD again I say. the prohibitive cost of the portable devices along with the fact they can only carry about the same number of songs as a CD has made them not much more than a cute toy. If an artist releases a song and charges, hmmm lets say $ 0.75 to d/l it, people will pay it, when calcualte that out to full album ( ten songs for the sake of this argument) thats $ 7.50 for the whole album, 90% of which is kept by the artist. That works out to be more than the artists make now per CD/cassette. If you want more info on why MP3 is good for the artist and the industry check out Chuck D's MP3 commentary on Wired.com.
3) The standard is too young and too unstable to support industry acceptance. Granted, this might change soon, but I would hate to reinvest yet again in a new music format that changes as quickly as technology. Music media formats usually last 15-20 years - do you think people will want to listen to crappy sounding MP'3 in 2015? Probably not. But then again would you want to purchase your music collection over again everytime a new version comes out? I realize this is the weakest of my arguments but it still bothers me. Music is timeless, unlike computer programs. The media should be more stable.
MP3 will be the door to digital music for the masses, it might not be on top in the end, but it is the start of a new era in music. I will refer to the afforementioned Wired.com article to dispense with this further.
Flesh 99, flinging MP3 FUD right out the window
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Can We trust the future - Flesh99