I have always been a late bloomer when it comes to embracing technological change (hence the 8 years it took me to start blogging). I didn’t get an iPod until 2006, five years after they came out. Sometimes I embrace too early and fail. Two examples would be the year I got an HD-DVD player for Christmas. One of my best friends, who bought it for me, insists he bought it because he thought it was going to win. But would anyone think Sony would fail?? I have no HD-DVDs to play, but the player itself makes a fine door stop (thanks Steve!). The second epic fail on my part is thinking Windows Vista was going to be better than XP, now I’m stuck with a sub par operating system.
Today’s topic is how iTunes and iPods have irrevocably damaged the music industry forever. I am not on a soap box here, but I have a strong case. As I stated above, it took me 5 years to get my first iPod. I didn’t even buy it, it was being thrown out because my aunt got a new one and said I could have it if I wanted it, so I took it. It makes playing your favorite songs handy, but the long lasting effects of listening to compressed (mp3) music have only started to rear its ugly head. The tell tale sign was the day The Beatles were put on iTunes. They were the last big hold out. Up until then, the only way to listen to them was buying a CD and playing it. Now that it is commercially, legally available on iTunes, a “new generation” of Beatles fans have been found and blah blah blah whatever else the press release says. I am really lucky to be slightly older to remember what CDs were. While most CDs of older titles sound bad, at least they were not compressed into mp3 files. In fact The Beatles CDs before the re-mastered ones were most likely just the master vinyl tapes, just transferred to CD, no re-mastering was done. While I think the mono version of The Beatles CDs is the way to go, the worst uncompressed music is better than the best mp3 music.
There is good news though, because there has been a resurgence in the audiophile world. Nowadays, most of the ‘old’ and a lot of the new wave artists are releasing 180g vinyl for those dinosaurs that still have turntables. They are also selling FLAC files from their website. FLAC in a nutshell is high quality uncompressed audio, much like audio from a CD. “Once you go FLAC, you don’t go back.” The one good thing about this practice of high quality audio files, is it limits who has access to your music and saves it only for the people who really like it, deserve it and can appreciate it. You need special equipment to play FLAC files or vinyl. One artist that comes to mind is Peter Gabriel. He has always been uber conscience about sound quality. While these artists’ stuff is available on iTunes, because it seems to be the way of the world, audiophiles can still get really high quality versions of new and old releases.
This is a double edged sword. Your wallet can be taken hostage for needing such high quality music. As you can see from previous posts, I have a love/hate relationship with The Beatles. They released the newly re-mastered CDs on 09-09-09, how cool were they??? Three versions of the CDs were released. They released the Stereo versions of the CDs in retail outlets as individual albums. But two box sets were also available. One was a stereo box set that had all the albums available for sale in retail. Then there was an ugly duckling box set that made a lot of audiophiles pissed off. They released a mono box set. Since Let it Be and Abbey Road were exclusive stereo albums, they were not included. So you get fewer albums for a more expensive price tag. Mono is only one speaker, you’d think it would be cheaper to only mix for one speaker, than with stereo where you have to mix for two speakers. How could a box set in mono with two less albums than the stereo box set cost more money? Could it be that The Beatles actually are in it for the money and not the music anymore? The coup for me was the only way to get the mono versions, was to buy the box set. The box set was not available as individual albums like the stereo. It also didn’t help that the mono albums were far superior to their stereo counterparts and that the mono was released as a limited edition and sold out rather quickly.
And when The Beatles finally came to iTunes, did you really think they would charge the same amount as every other artist? Obviously since I asked that question, you can figure that no, they would not. The Beatles cost .25 cents more than all the other slobs on iTunes. It’s like slapping the Bon Ivers, The Monkees and Madonnas of the world in the face and telling them that they aren’t as good as the four lads from Liverpool. If The Beatles weren’t so money grubbing, they would have realized that putting their music on iTunes would compress it. Paul McCartney is always talking about how good the new transfers sound, so it’s a no brainer that they won’t sound good when you compress them. Maybe he’s hard up for cash, he only charges 290 USD for decent seats to his concerts. And he only makes about 2 million dollars per concert, not bad for three hours work huh? I did the math last year and I found out I spent 13% of my total earnings on concert tickets. I’d rather support the artists that way, then downloading their music from iTunes.
While we’re on the subject of buying digital music, don’t think I only bitch and moan about The Beatles. I was surfing Paul Simon’s new website, and found you can buy mp3s from his digital store. I thought it was funny that he charges more money for “popular songs.” If you want to download 50 Ways to part with a buck thirty, I mean 50 Ways to Leave your Lover, you have to spend $1.30. But if you want a crappy song like Duncan, it’s only .99 cents. I look of it as the other way around, I get charged more for the crappy mainstream songs that I am sick to death of, and get a discount because I like the not as well known songs. Now mind you, I don’t buy online music, in fact, I own the original CDs, plus the re-master, plus the re-re-master with 1 bonus song which is why I bought the re-re-master in the first place of most of his albums. I have good and bad news, Sony is working on re-mastering his solo catalog for release later in the year, so now I will own four of the same album. Yay for me! Songs from the Graceland album are .30 cents more so I guess I will have to do a blog about how Graceland is getting on my nerves too.
I will not listen to anything that is compressed below 256kb/sec. You can tell, everything sounds washy and it just sounds atrocious. I even have my iPod set to encode at the lower compression rate, I don’t care that I can’t fit as many songs on it. As you see by my last post, after I take the Beatles off my iPod (and yes, before you ask, I only have the mono versions of the albums on my iPod) I will have a lot more room.
I am also the kind of person who likes reading physical liner notes and likes having a physical product. I guess if you think about it, it’s the same thing that happened to vinyl when CDs came out. The product got smaller and the art of the ‘album art’ went out the window. Now we have moved from a smaller physical product to no product at all. CDs cost the same as the download usually. So, if that’s the case, it should cost less to download a sub par version of the music, but it doesn’t.
It’s a proven fact that the aging dinosaurs (artists who are internationally famous rock stars, but don’t really move a lot of units of their new releases, like Macca, The Boss, The Stones, Elton) of the music industry make their real money touring because people will shell out 100 bucks to go see their favorite artist. I had a chuckle when I was on Steve Martin’s website and he had a couple of royalty checks posted from his latest album, they were for .03 cents. It probably costs more for the record company to print the checks than what it is written for. Artists should be more open to giving away new music because people will listen tell their friends, and will increase their concert ticket sales. Word of mouth is still the best advertisement. The problem with the music industry is the music industry. It’s sort of why government doesn’t work anymore.
Paul McCartney is a smart cookie. When he realized that he got a rotten deal from The Beatles (as was the case with a lot of acts from the 60’s) he got into music publishing. He owns a crap load of songs and entire artists’ catalogs, including the I Love Lucy theme song, so every time that show airs, he gets a check (probably more than .03 cents too). Now the story goes that Paul gave Michael Jackson some advice when he was just starting his solo career and they did their 2 duet songs together around 1983ish (Say Say Say, The Girl is Mine). He told Michael to get into music publishing. Michael said “I’m going to buy your songs Paul” [read with the effeminate high voice in your head] and Paul joked it off and said, “Sure you are Michael.” I’m sure when Paul was on the crapper reading the paper one morning and saw that, he literally shit his pants. Paul has the pay the estate of Michael Jackson to sing Hey Jude in concert, he wrote the God damn song!!!!
Have to run, gotta go listen to Hey Jude on my iPod (the mono version).
Disclaimers:
iPod and iTunes are registered TMs of Apple Computer Inc. The Beatles is a registered TM of Apple Corps LTD, Paul McCartney is a registered TM of MPL Communication LTD, Michael Jackson is a registered TM of Triumph International, Inc. I think that’s all of them, if I missed any I’m sure the attorneys will let me know.
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