True story: I was running late the other day, trying to get out of the house with my three-year-old son in tow. Somewhere out on the road I realized I didn't have the CD wallet we keep in the car. I was pretty sure I'd brought it out with me from the house and I had a bad feeling I knew exactly where I'd last seen it: sitting on the roof of the car where I'd set it before rushing back to the house to pick up some forgotten item.
By the time I was somewhere where I could safely pull over and take a look it was predictably gone. Its recovery now is beyond a long shot, I have to assume all those CDs, almost 30, are gone. In many cases I don't even have a back-up - I've been lazy about ripping new stuff to iTunes and of the newest CDs tend to get into the car rotation.
As financial losses go it's on par with a medium car repair or perhaps some dental work - the sort of thing that happens pretty regularly, in other words, though I'm finding myself considerably more irked by this somehow. Maybe because replacing what was lost is going to involve considerable work. Going through all the empty cases, figuring what I've got a copy ripped to iTunes for, deciding what to let go, what to burn a fresh copy and leave it at that, what to replace with a new CD.
Quite a different wrinkle in the range of choices there, and it's been making me think about this transition to a standalone-media-optional world. Digital downloads have dominated my music purchases recently, and I haven't been losing any sleep over issues of lower audio quality, lack of packaging or the arguable ephemerality of a digital purchase. But this recent loss has made me realize there is still a pretty sharp line between a digital download and a physical CD in my mind. Where I have (or had) a CD I think of that as the master copy; even if I have MP3s ripped to my hard drive I don't feel like I still have that album: I still have to decide whether I think it essential enough that I'll need to replace it with a new CD.
There are excellent reasons for valuing a CD in the digital download age - not least because when technological development eliminates the need for compression of audio files, anything on CD will allow a free fidelity upgrade. But I have a feeling the distinction I'm making is primarily psychological. I don't feel like digital purchases I've made recently are less of an album than CDs I've bought. But I bought those CDs I lost and mentally, I'm feeling the loss of an object.
I think about loss differently with digital files. To me, psychologically, there is no "original" or "master" copy. The data on my hard drive is regularly reiterated in backups, and total loss of anything that's been backed up, while not impossible, would certainly involve something fairly catastrophic.
The distinctions I'm chewing over are not really practical or technical ones. The interesting inner reality it boils down to is that my purchasing habits have evolved to a new environment but there is still a lot of an old mentality present as far as how I view my music as possessions. It is a distinction I expect to continue eroding until the possession of a physical object becomes genuinely obsolete.
A final thought this whole consideration puts me in mind of is that, while I currently scorn the "subscription" model of digital music (I mean, where you pay for access that you lose when your subscription lapses), I can see a real place for the underlying service model where maintenance of the "master copy" is handled remotely. Already, managing the footprint music occupies on my hardware memory is an issue. I might well find it worth paying for some centralization that could render loss obsolete and provide me with software and statistical tools for managing it all - downgrading the seldom-used to remote maintenance, optimizing the currently popular for distributed access, and so forth. In the current environment it would probably be a legal tangle, and memory, bandwidth and wireless developments will radically change how it all pans out. But I suspect the model of data management as a service will play a big role in the future of music as commerce. The end of physical ownership that could, ironically, render the music one "owns" far less ephemeral than mere disks of plastic - which can disappear with a momentary lapse of attention.
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at that Index Page
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Friday, November 30, 2007
Brad Does Not Suck: real indie at last.
Update: September 2008: Brad Sucks recently released a new CD, Out of It. Given the minor technical glitch I experienced with the sale in the review below, a note on my most recent retail experience: my pre-order sale went through without a hitch, I got a head's up email on release day that my downloads were enabled, and got the album with no problems. Everything I like about Brad Sucks has stayed just as good, though. This recent blog update gives details about how he's sticking with the "open source" mentality that characterized the first album release. And those dumb humps over at Pitchfork still never heard of him.
Original Review
Ottowa-based Brad Sucks has everything a person ought to need to be a mainstream success. Musically solid, catchy, lots of smartly-woven musical threads drawing on sources from dance to Detroit rock guitarsmanship to country. All delivering sharply written, economical lyrics sung in an appealing baritone (Brad informs me he thinks he's actually a low tenor) that's a perfect fit to the words. But of course I'm not reviewing music here, I'll have to leave that up to Pitchfork. Apparently nobody over at Pitchfork reads William Gibson's blog, though, as Brad Sucks is of this writing unknown there. In summary, new media or not, there's still a lot of holes in the net, and my opinion is not yet a significant factor in what "blows up."
Now I've known of Brad Sucks for a while, and in fact shared space on a compilation album I may have mentioned previously with him (he and I appearing as alter egos frenetic and nanojath respectively, lower case represent!), and I've been looking forward to listening to his full album, I Don't Know What I'm Doing, for a long time, but I had this idea rolling around in my brain that I was going to start the Phree Musique Blog again as a digital music store review site, so I squirreled away that link in a folder with lots of company and, you know, years passed.
Of course my unreliable writing strategy need not have interfered with my listening to all the music and then some, since Brad offers lower quality free downloads, full production files for the remix-minded (and plenty of the remixed for free as well). But this is one of the persistent downsides of the internet: out of sight, out of mind.
So after taking something like three years after deciding I wanted to own it to purchase the album I don't know how much I should complain that it took four or five days for my digital album to be available to download. It was my own fault for mindlessly agreeing to whatever PayPal defaulted to and electing to pay with an e-check, the banking industry's for its "shit don't happen weekends or holidays" policy (I ordered just before Thanksgiving), and it must be said a glitch in Brad's self-coded store that the download stayed hung up even after the e-check cleared (the open source store software is still another totally cool Brad service, though). I did eventually have to clear it up with an email, which was quickly and politely dealt with. Doubtless the kink is already worked out. I also don't doubt that an email at any point in the transaction would have gotten the files unlocked.
Other than that the store itself is simple with lots of options (OGG and FLAC files are available for you purists, along with the 192k MP3s for us philistines) and the commerce half is the standard PayPal experience. If I'd used a credit card (or trusted PayPal to hang on to more of my money) it would have been transparent commerce. My only other complaint is that I still think a buck a track is too steep, particularly for direct sale, and though the full album gets a price break it's the same cost as the physical CD (though you save shipping): I imagine this is a conscious choice and I suppose there's an argument for uniform pricing. I still crave a bargain when shopping digital files, and more than the "save on shipping" variety.
Still, the package when it arrived pretty much blew away the competition thus far: I've been complaining about the stinginess with the metadata in a context where delivering additional data is all but free: I was very pleased to see files for the full CD booklet (with lyrics) and even a circular formatted label if you're the sort of person who prints labels for your CD-Rs.
In short, I expect great things from Brad Sucks: definitely one to watch. I think in most respects he sets the bar higher for the pure digital commerce experience. Pitchfork take note.
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at that Index Page
Original Review
Ottowa-based Brad Sucks has everything a person ought to need to be a mainstream success. Musically solid, catchy, lots of smartly-woven musical threads drawing on sources from dance to Detroit rock guitarsmanship to country. All delivering sharply written, economical lyrics sung in an appealing baritone (Brad informs me he thinks he's actually a low tenor) that's a perfect fit to the words. But of course I'm not reviewing music here, I'll have to leave that up to Pitchfork. Apparently nobody over at Pitchfork reads William Gibson's blog, though, as Brad Sucks is of this writing unknown there. In summary, new media or not, there's still a lot of holes in the net, and my opinion is not yet a significant factor in what "blows up."
Now I've known of Brad Sucks for a while, and in fact shared space on a compilation album I may have mentioned previously with him (he and I appearing as alter egos frenetic and nanojath respectively, lower case represent!), and I've been looking forward to listening to his full album, I Don't Know What I'm Doing, for a long time, but I had this idea rolling around in my brain that I was going to start the Phree Musique Blog again as a digital music store review site, so I squirreled away that link in a folder with lots of company and, you know, years passed.
Of course my unreliable writing strategy need not have interfered with my listening to all the music and then some, since Brad offers lower quality free downloads, full production files for the remix-minded (and plenty of the remixed for free as well). But this is one of the persistent downsides of the internet: out of sight, out of mind.
So after taking something like three years after deciding I wanted to own it to purchase the album I don't know how much I should complain that it took four or five days for my digital album to be available to download. It was my own fault for mindlessly agreeing to whatever PayPal defaulted to and electing to pay with an e-check, the banking industry's for its "shit don't happen weekends or holidays" policy (I ordered just before Thanksgiving), and it must be said a glitch in Brad's self-coded store that the download stayed hung up even after the e-check cleared (the open source store software is still another totally cool Brad service, though). I did eventually have to clear it up with an email, which was quickly and politely dealt with. Doubtless the kink is already worked out. I also don't doubt that an email at any point in the transaction would have gotten the files unlocked.
Other than that the store itself is simple with lots of options (OGG and FLAC files are available for you purists, along with the 192k MP3s for us philistines) and the commerce half is the standard PayPal experience. If I'd used a credit card (or trusted PayPal to hang on to more of my money) it would have been transparent commerce. My only other complaint is that I still think a buck a track is too steep, particularly for direct sale, and though the full album gets a price break it's the same cost as the physical CD (though you save shipping): I imagine this is a conscious choice and I suppose there's an argument for uniform pricing. I still crave a bargain when shopping digital files, and more than the "save on shipping" variety.
Still, the package when it arrived pretty much blew away the competition thus far: I've been complaining about the stinginess with the metadata in a context where delivering additional data is all but free: I was very pleased to see files for the full CD booklet (with lyrics) and even a circular formatted label if you're the sort of person who prints labels for your CD-Rs.
In short, I expect great things from Brad Sucks: definitely one to watch. I think in most respects he sets the bar higher for the pure digital commerce experience. Pitchfork take note.
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at that Index Page
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
The Screw Up: a Thanksgiving essay on unintended consequences
So I made an online purchase from a single artist store a couple days ago, which is still pending as of this writing. I know, right? Intolerable. But it's complicated, I'm not sure if I myself, the artist, or PayPal is primarily to blame. Obviously a review of the experience is out of the question for now, anyway. I'll tell you all about it when my download clears. Anyway, it seemed like a good excuse to slip in an essay.
I get lost sometimes in contemplation of how badly the record business screwed up their business model with the CD. I tend to be well behind the curve, technologically, but I knew they'd blown it when one of my more with it friends explained to me that their computer's CD-ROM drive played music CDs and did so by virtue of some 3rd party, unaffiliated software. Actual mix "tapes" were still the norm at this point: we're talking about ten, twelve years ago.
Pushing a media transition to a completely unprotected data format on what is shaping up to be the first popular post-diskette media for computers probably isn't the sort of mistake the record boys would make today but then I doubt they'll get another opportunity to screw around with formats. Music went post-media without them.
What I was thinking about recently though was that they also screwed the product aesthetically in the shift to the CD and that this in no small part is facilitating the disappearance of a discrete object from the recorded music equation. As a general rule I'm perfectly happy to have a bit of digital image the size of four postage stamps replace the packaging of my CDs. The artwork's just barely superior, the metadata tends to the mundane (and marginally usable). And the jewel case? The jewel case is the cruel joke of an arrogant orthodoxy.
Maybe this is one of the opportunities of the nascent marketplace in the pure digital sound: can anyone deliver an aesthetic experience along with the megabytes? Because the evidence of my explorations so far suggests that no, you can't. Maybe that's done now, for music, and your four postage stamps is what you get, or maybe your video is your new jacket art, filmed in Canada to replace printed in. Still, if you're looking for some stand out angle to distinguish your little pop stand along the fabled superhighway, it might bear considering.
Give thanks for unintended consequences. Back after the holiday.
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at that Index Page
I get lost sometimes in contemplation of how badly the record business screwed up their business model with the CD. I tend to be well behind the curve, technologically, but I knew they'd blown it when one of my more with it friends explained to me that their computer's CD-ROM drive played music CDs and did so by virtue of some 3rd party, unaffiliated software. Actual mix "tapes" were still the norm at this point: we're talking about ten, twelve years ago.
Pushing a media transition to a completely unprotected data format on what is shaping up to be the first popular post-diskette media for computers probably isn't the sort of mistake the record boys would make today but then I doubt they'll get another opportunity to screw around with formats. Music went post-media without them.
What I was thinking about recently though was that they also screwed the product aesthetically in the shift to the CD and that this in no small part is facilitating the disappearance of a discrete object from the recorded music equation. As a general rule I'm perfectly happy to have a bit of digital image the size of four postage stamps replace the packaging of my CDs. The artwork's just barely superior, the metadata tends to the mundane (and marginally usable). And the jewel case? The jewel case is the cruel joke of an arrogant orthodoxy.
Maybe this is one of the opportunities of the nascent marketplace in the pure digital sound: can anyone deliver an aesthetic experience along with the megabytes? Because the evidence of my explorations so far suggests that no, you can't. Maybe that's done now, for music, and your four postage stamps is what you get, or maybe your video is your new jacket art, filmed in Canada to replace printed in. Still, if you're looking for some stand out angle to distinguish your little pop stand along the fabled superhighway, it might bear considering.
Give thanks for unintended consequences. Back after the holiday.
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at that Index Page
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Intellectual Property: a study in contrasts
It seems to me a grave discourtesy, to say no more, to issue my book without even a polite note informing me of the project... However that may be, this paperback edition and no other has been published with my consent and co-operation. Those who approve of courtesy (at least) to living authors will purchase it, and no other. And if the many kind readers who have encouraged me with their letters will add to their courtesy by referring friends or enquirers to Ballantine Books, I shall be very grateful.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, internationally famous author and cultural icon, foreword to the 1965 paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings
Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid's face should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning. Those kids are putting 100,000 to a million people out of work. How can you pick on them? They've got freckles. That's a crook. He may as well be wearing a bandit's mask.
Gene Simmons, minor reality television celebrity and cultural dinosaur, 2007 Billboard Interview
I was finally getting around to patching up my battered paperback boxed set of The Lord of the Rings - nostalgically purchased for a few dollars for being twins to the set that introduced me to the trilogy - my father's original set that he purchased when he was just a few years out of the Seminary. I first read that statement about the authorized edition over twenty years ago: reading it again I was struck by the contrast to Simmons' tough guy melodrama I'd read the day before.
My dad has related to me many times how he picked up the first book of Ace's unauthorized (and hastily assembled, and error-ridden) edition off a rack without knowing anything about the book, only to discover it was part of a trilogy. His attempts to mail order the rest of the series ran afoul of the publicity backlash Ace experienced when Tolkien spread the word that the edition had been produced without his consent (and without payment to him), which spurred Ace to pull the volume and pay Tolkien a compensatory pittance. Ace's edition was probably legal, as it exploited a loophole in U.S. copyright law, but popular outcry led them drop the book without legal compulsion.
Some interesting comparisons could be contemplated between the current business situation of the "record industry" and Tolkien and his British publisher's plight in the mid 1960's, though the situations are very far from perfectly analogous. Indeed, there is a whole other article to be had picking apart Simmons' assertions about the business of music - his comparison of the perceived value of music to the price of gold is in itself a lesson in twentieth century information psychology (extending the analysis to a slightly more apt comparison, such as to the market in diamonds as the age of inexpensive engineered gemstones evolves might make for particularly interesting investigation).
But what really struck me is the contrast in the tone and content of these two statements. Simmons' tirade, while nominally directed against the record industry, bears every hallmark of the party line. From the dire assumption of the death of commercial music (with a quick violin riff for all the little people whose livelihoods will be destroyed), to the conflation of file sharing with robbery, and particularly the assumption that the only possible solution would have been massive, heavy-handed legal retribution against individuals to cow the public into respecting copyright out of fear.
Tolkien doesn't warn of some cataclysm in the business of publishing books or even suggest that his own fortunes will be destroyed by the unauthorized publication of his works. He does not treat the legalities of the issue at all, and he certainly does not suggest that individuals who might have taken advantage of Ace's cheaper edition (by selling or buying it) deserved to suffer some consequence for their action. His formal, almost courtly plea suggests that the reader might find the critical question to be of all things one of courtesy.
The appeal to courtesy is something that the the major labels and their chattels have utterly lost access to in the midst of their ongoing assault of legal attacks, specious and ham-handed social engineering, and the technological insults of DRM. More independent players who elected not to stumble along with this failed campaign might yet make very good use of it, I think.
Tolkien aside, it perpetually blows my mind that the press is willing to give a pass to the assertions of self-appointed experts like Gene Simmons that the financial woes of the record industry can be devolved to one thing: college kids with computers and their devilish P2P voodoo. It leads me to seriously consider whether the primary function of the RIAA is not so much the Sisyphean task of staunching the industry's ongoing hemorrhage as to ensconce firmly in the public mind this particular scapegoat. Which wouldn't necessarily be a surprising goal since common sense and an increasing body of empirical evidence suggest a raft of alternative contributions to the decline in music industry revenues, which mostly boil down to stupid business practices by a lazy, profligate industry that lost any serious engagement with innovation somewhere around the mid-nineties. There could be no more blatant example than the fact that the industry's current, tentative forays into selling DRM-free digital downloads comes a good seven years late (and five years after finally suing fresh-faced college student Shawn Fanning's Napster off the face of the earth, Mr. Simmons take note) - a decision based solely on the almost unimaginably technologically incompetent assertion that unencumbered digital files would somehow contribute to illicit file sharing in a manner that conventional CDs would not.
There are lessons of opportunity in every one of these examples. Every year the conventional industry fails to adapt is a year of opportunity for everyone else to take advantage of customers like me: I'm spending more money on music than ever, to a large degree because of the superior value I'm getting from alternative markets and my conviction that for the most part I'm buying through avenues that give the artists themselves a better deal. And when my (at least) third-hand copy of The Lord of the Rings wears out completely I'll be sure to buy a new copy that contributes to the estate. As a courtesy.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, internationally famous author and cultural icon, foreword to the 1965 paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings
Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid's face should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning. Those kids are putting 100,000 to a million people out of work. How can you pick on them? They've got freckles. That's a crook. He may as well be wearing a bandit's mask.
Gene Simmons, minor reality television celebrity and cultural dinosaur, 2007 Billboard Interview
I was finally getting around to patching up my battered paperback boxed set of The Lord of the Rings - nostalgically purchased for a few dollars for being twins to the set that introduced me to the trilogy - my father's original set that he purchased when he was just a few years out of the Seminary. I first read that statement about the authorized edition over twenty years ago: reading it again I was struck by the contrast to Simmons' tough guy melodrama I'd read the day before.
My dad has related to me many times how he picked up the first book of Ace's unauthorized (and hastily assembled, and error-ridden) edition off a rack without knowing anything about the book, only to discover it was part of a trilogy. His attempts to mail order the rest of the series ran afoul of the publicity backlash Ace experienced when Tolkien spread the word that the edition had been produced without his consent (and without payment to him), which spurred Ace to pull the volume and pay Tolkien a compensatory pittance. Ace's edition was probably legal, as it exploited a loophole in U.S. copyright law, but popular outcry led them drop the book without legal compulsion.
Some interesting comparisons could be contemplated between the current business situation of the "record industry" and Tolkien and his British publisher's plight in the mid 1960's, though the situations are very far from perfectly analogous. Indeed, there is a whole other article to be had picking apart Simmons' assertions about the business of music - his comparison of the perceived value of music to the price of gold is in itself a lesson in twentieth century information psychology (extending the analysis to a slightly more apt comparison, such as to the market in diamonds as the age of inexpensive engineered gemstones evolves might make for particularly interesting investigation).
But what really struck me is the contrast in the tone and content of these two statements. Simmons' tirade, while nominally directed against the record industry, bears every hallmark of the party line. From the dire assumption of the death of commercial music (with a quick violin riff for all the little people whose livelihoods will be destroyed), to the conflation of file sharing with robbery, and particularly the assumption that the only possible solution would have been massive, heavy-handed legal retribution against individuals to cow the public into respecting copyright out of fear.
Tolkien doesn't warn of some cataclysm in the business of publishing books or even suggest that his own fortunes will be destroyed by the unauthorized publication of his works. He does not treat the legalities of the issue at all, and he certainly does not suggest that individuals who might have taken advantage of Ace's cheaper edition (by selling or buying it) deserved to suffer some consequence for their action. His formal, almost courtly plea suggests that the reader might find the critical question to be of all things one of courtesy.
The appeal to courtesy is something that the the major labels and their chattels have utterly lost access to in the midst of their ongoing assault of legal attacks, specious and ham-handed social engineering, and the technological insults of DRM. More independent players who elected not to stumble along with this failed campaign might yet make very good use of it, I think.
Tolkien aside, it perpetually blows my mind that the press is willing to give a pass to the assertions of self-appointed experts like Gene Simmons that the financial woes of the record industry can be devolved to one thing: college kids with computers and their devilish P2P voodoo. It leads me to seriously consider whether the primary function of the RIAA is not so much the Sisyphean task of staunching the industry's ongoing hemorrhage as to ensconce firmly in the public mind this particular scapegoat. Which wouldn't necessarily be a surprising goal since common sense and an increasing body of empirical evidence suggest a raft of alternative contributions to the decline in music industry revenues, which mostly boil down to stupid business practices by a lazy, profligate industry that lost any serious engagement with innovation somewhere around the mid-nineties. There could be no more blatant example than the fact that the industry's current, tentative forays into selling DRM-free digital downloads comes a good seven years late (and five years after finally suing fresh-faced college student Shawn Fanning's Napster off the face of the earth, Mr. Simmons take note) - a decision based solely on the almost unimaginably technologically incompetent assertion that unencumbered digital files would somehow contribute to illicit file sharing in a manner that conventional CDs would not.
There are lessons of opportunity in every one of these examples. Every year the conventional industry fails to adapt is a year of opportunity for everyone else to take advantage of customers like me: I'm spending more money on music than ever, to a large degree because of the superior value I'm getting from alternative markets and my conviction that for the most part I'm buying through avenues that give the artists themselves a better deal. And when my (at least) third-hand copy of The Lord of the Rings wears out completely I'll be sure to buy a new copy that contributes to the estate. As a courtesy.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Amazon.com: test driving the big Kahuna
I'm not a big fan of Amazon.com, to put it right out front, mainly because of their patent hijinx and "relaxed" attitudes towards privacy. In fact, I'm pretty sure I pompously "canceled my account" in an energetically written email inspired by some outrage de jour, several years back. Of course, they never flushed my data, as I discovered to little surprise when I came slinking back at some later date, snared in the unethical pincers of the lowest available price...
Indeed, I was moderately horrified upon signing in for the first time in quite a while to discover that my account (with credit card info preloaded and ready) was still hanging out there guarded only by my old, pre-paranoia, weakish password that I used to secure EVERYTHING with before some weird though inconclusive anomalies turned up on a credit card account and spooked me into converting anything identity-theftalicious over to strong, pain-in-the-ass long strings of gibberish passwords. Take that, NSA!
Anyway.
So despite my ambiguous relationship with the great flagship of ye olde internette bubble the first (another list in that long line of things I never thought I'd find myself doing: pining for the nineties), I found it very significant and exciting when Amazon announced the launch of its DRM-free MP3 download store. Let's not mince words: this is the first and at this point only competition to iTunes. I'm talking, of course, about the mainstream here, and I don't expect this bicameral hegemony to last long. Still, although my credentials as a capitalist are shaky, I believe in the value of competition to optimize transactional systems, and seeing this unfold in a nascent marketplace in real time definitely turns my crank. And honestly, I've been fairly impressed with what I've been seeing out of Amazon recently, as regards commoditization of data transaction, so I've been eager to check the new kid on the block out.
It would be real interesting to find out what sort of wrangling it took to get a serious chunk of the major labels' catalogs available without DRM. I have a sneaky suspicion that the prospect of sticking it to Apple, which seems to have a less than idyllic relationship with many of its content providers, had a place in this equation. But alas such questions are beyond the scope of my little review project. Perhaps someone will write a book someday. Let's get to the core commerce experience.
I'm proceeding on the assumption that Gentle Reader comes with previous experience with the Amazon shopping paradigm. Up to checkout shopping the online store is pretty identical. You're encouraged to grab a little download manager app, and indeed I believe it is mandatory to download full albums, but the process is conventional and painless (as long as you don't mind clicking "I agree" boxes without first doing a lot of tedious reading to find out which rights you're clicking away this time). I'd recommend installing it up front.
The MP3 Downloads Department front page is the same witlessly organized, overstuffed (six page-downs of scroll!) mess we've all come to know and love (amusingly led, in this case, by shameless exploitation of iPod iconography, universal symbol of the digital music). I'll freely admit I don't have ready alternatives for the apparently inescapable melange of useless genre category sidebars, "hot new picks," and row after row of brainless categories... featured artists (why look honey, Jay-Z is featured. Let's check that young man out), the spotlighted, the new, the hot, and in the basement, the inevitable blogged. I won't let my lack of solutions stop me from pointing out what a travesty this sort of virtual mall experience is on the downhill side of the 21st century, decade one. At least the search toolbar, the only thing on the page that's worth a damn, is at the top.
Search is, of course, rendering ever-widening swaths of data presentation obsolete, and to be honest I had to kind of force myself to notice what a junkyard the front page was. My inclination is to automatically ignore it and just start looking for what I want. Amazon's search is perfectly functional, I found what I was looking for first time out 3 tries in a row.
For purchasing, it appears Amazon has adopted the iTunes "pay as you go" system: there isn't a shopping cart feature for downloads: everything goes through 1-click (and you can stick your registered trademark up your @-hole, Amazon). While this isn't such a burden if you're buying albums, it's as stupid system for a la carte downloads on Amazon as it is on iTunes, maybe more so as Amazon already has the architecture of a shopping cart in place.
Beyond this, the downloads went mostly smoothly. They went into my iTunes library automatically, a welcome feature for a third party vendor. The album art showed up as well, though at this point I've got so many widgets and doodads managing musical metacontent that it's hard to tell if Amazon had anything to do with that.
I had one scare with my purchases. Some downloaded content stopped showing up in iTunes in the middle of the process, apparently as the result of my dicking around with unrelated iTunes files while the transfer was ongoing. When I saw the missing songs listed as complete in Amazon's download manager window I feared an interaction with customer support was in my future. I should say it's hard to say whether this error was Amazon's fault, something to do with iTunes, or the result of my overstuffed hard drive, which is causing my aging G4 iMac to gag over pretty much any kind of multitasking these days.
Whatever the case, a handy "Reveal in Finder" button on the download manager showed that only the transfer to the iTunes library had been arrested - the files were safely ensconced in a welcome new Amazon downloads folder in my iTunes music files. My buddies over at eMusic (I'll get to you, I'll get to you!) could take some lessons from Amazon's download management protocols. I called the missing tracks up from within iTunes and all was well.
The prices are pretty conventional, too high in my book, in other words - mostly $.99, occasionally $.89 a track. M.I.A. gave me a break for buying the whole album on Kala (yay), no such love from Steely Dan, however (boo). I bought three LPs and spent a little under $23, not terrible, but hopefully that competition factor will actually kick in at some point. Still, I ended up with well-organized albums of 256 kbps MP3s intelligently fed into my computers music filing system.
Bottom line: Amazon delivers an impressive catalog of DRM-free albums and tracks at market-fair but uninspiring prices. The browsing interface is typically clunky but the download manager is simple and helpful, and the mesh with iTunes virtually seamless. I have no reservations saying that Amazon has earned its place as an essential vendor for any serious consumer of digital downloads. Amazon, my grudging props to you.
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at that Index Page
Indeed, I was moderately horrified upon signing in for the first time in quite a while to discover that my account (with credit card info preloaded and ready) was still hanging out there guarded only by my old, pre-paranoia, weakish password that I used to secure EVERYTHING with before some weird though inconclusive anomalies turned up on a credit card account and spooked me into converting anything identity-theftalicious over to strong, pain-in-the-ass long strings of gibberish passwords. Take that, NSA!
Anyway.
So despite my ambiguous relationship with the great flagship of ye olde internette bubble the first (another list in that long line of things I never thought I'd find myself doing: pining for the nineties), I found it very significant and exciting when Amazon announced the launch of its DRM-free MP3 download store. Let's not mince words: this is the first and at this point only competition to iTunes. I'm talking, of course, about the mainstream here, and I don't expect this bicameral hegemony to last long. Still, although my credentials as a capitalist are shaky, I believe in the value of competition to optimize transactional systems, and seeing this unfold in a nascent marketplace in real time definitely turns my crank. And honestly, I've been fairly impressed with what I've been seeing out of Amazon recently, as regards commoditization of data transaction, so I've been eager to check the new kid on the block out.
It would be real interesting to find out what sort of wrangling it took to get a serious chunk of the major labels' catalogs available without DRM. I have a sneaky suspicion that the prospect of sticking it to Apple, which seems to have a less than idyllic relationship with many of its content providers, had a place in this equation. But alas such questions are beyond the scope of my little review project. Perhaps someone will write a book someday. Let's get to the core commerce experience.
I'm proceeding on the assumption that Gentle Reader comes with previous experience with the Amazon shopping paradigm. Up to checkout shopping the online store is pretty identical. You're encouraged to grab a little download manager app, and indeed I believe it is mandatory to download full albums, but the process is conventional and painless (as long as you don't mind clicking "I agree" boxes without first doing a lot of tedious reading to find out which rights you're clicking away this time). I'd recommend installing it up front.
The MP3 Downloads Department front page is the same witlessly organized, overstuffed (six page-downs of scroll!) mess we've all come to know and love (amusingly led, in this case, by shameless exploitation of iPod iconography, universal symbol of the digital music). I'll freely admit I don't have ready alternatives for the apparently inescapable melange of useless genre category sidebars, "hot new picks," and row after row of brainless categories... featured artists (why look honey, Jay-Z is featured. Let's check that young man out), the spotlighted, the new, the hot, and in the basement, the inevitable blogged. I won't let my lack of solutions stop me from pointing out what a travesty this sort of virtual mall experience is on the downhill side of the 21st century, decade one. At least the search toolbar, the only thing on the page that's worth a damn, is at the top.
Search is, of course, rendering ever-widening swaths of data presentation obsolete, and to be honest I had to kind of force myself to notice what a junkyard the front page was. My inclination is to automatically ignore it and just start looking for what I want. Amazon's search is perfectly functional, I found what I was looking for first time out 3 tries in a row.
For purchasing, it appears Amazon has adopted the iTunes "pay as you go" system: there isn't a shopping cart feature for downloads: everything goes through 1-click (and you can stick your registered trademark up your @-hole, Amazon). While this isn't such a burden if you're buying albums, it's as stupid system for a la carte downloads on Amazon as it is on iTunes, maybe more so as Amazon already has the architecture of a shopping cart in place.
Beyond this, the downloads went mostly smoothly. They went into my iTunes library automatically, a welcome feature for a third party vendor. The album art showed up as well, though at this point I've got so many widgets and doodads managing musical metacontent that it's hard to tell if Amazon had anything to do with that.
I had one scare with my purchases. Some downloaded content stopped showing up in iTunes in the middle of the process, apparently as the result of my dicking around with unrelated iTunes files while the transfer was ongoing. When I saw the missing songs listed as complete in Amazon's download manager window I feared an interaction with customer support was in my future. I should say it's hard to say whether this error was Amazon's fault, something to do with iTunes, or the result of my overstuffed hard drive, which is causing my aging G4 iMac to gag over pretty much any kind of multitasking these days.
Whatever the case, a handy "Reveal in Finder" button on the download manager showed that only the transfer to the iTunes library had been arrested - the files were safely ensconced in a welcome new Amazon downloads folder in my iTunes music files. My buddies over at eMusic (I'll get to you, I'll get to you!) could take some lessons from Amazon's download management protocols. I called the missing tracks up from within iTunes and all was well.
The prices are pretty conventional, too high in my book, in other words - mostly $.99, occasionally $.89 a track. M.I.A. gave me a break for buying the whole album on Kala (yay), no such love from Steely Dan, however (boo). I bought three LPs and spent a little under $23, not terrible, but hopefully that competition factor will actually kick in at some point. Still, I ended up with well-organized albums of 256 kbps MP3s intelligently fed into my computers music filing system.
Bottom line: Amazon delivers an impressive catalog of DRM-free albums and tracks at market-fair but uninspiring prices. The browsing interface is typically clunky but the download manager is simple and helpful, and the mesh with iTunes virtually seamless. I have no reservations saying that Amazon has earned its place as an essential vendor for any serious consumer of digital downloads. Amazon, my grudging props to you.
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at that Index Page
Monday, November 05, 2007
Stay tuned, new soon...
Ambition. Well, it surely was not my intent to get the recreation of this underway and then immediately get stalled by day to day circumstances. But I did. But I'm looking to get back rolling next week, look for a new music buying experience November 12, you can read a bit more about the details over at the song of the day weblog.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
The times, they are a'changin'... Link roundup
In between reviews I plan to do some topical roundups of relevant links and the occasional essay.
It's been a hell of a couple of weeks for the major labels. EMI's new moneyman owner notices his newly acquired industry has been getting run into the ground by fat cat executives with no vision. The music guy for the last relevant internet portal business tells said fat cat executives "your business model sucks, so I'm not going to use it anymore." But the big news is without question the artists. Radiohead. Trent Reznor. Jamiriquoi and Oasis. The currently unsigned and soon-to-be-released are making news with announcements and rumors of taking to the heady waters of self-distribution.
Even download-hating, "what the fuck do you think you're doing" label queen Madonna is said to be in negotiations to ditch Warner Bros. for a decidedly unconventional relationship with a concert promoter, though that particular deal sounds more like "I reject you, Satan, in favor of you, Satan Prime!" It's still an industry, after all. Nevertheless, as far as the business of music is concerned, we do seem to be blessed with the curse of living in interesting times. Let's observe a moment of silence together and imagine a record company executive shitting a brick.
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at that Index Page
It's been a hell of a couple of weeks for the major labels. EMI's new moneyman owner notices his newly acquired industry has been getting run into the ground by fat cat executives with no vision. The music guy for the last relevant internet portal business tells said fat cat executives "your business model sucks, so I'm not going to use it anymore." But the big news is without question the artists. Radiohead. Trent Reznor. Jamiriquoi and Oasis. The currently unsigned and soon-to-be-released are making news with announcements and rumors of taking to the heady waters of self-distribution.
Even download-hating, "what the fuck do you think you're doing" label queen Madonna is said to be in negotiations to ditch Warner Bros. for a decidedly unconventional relationship with a concert promoter, though that particular deal sounds more like "I reject you, Satan, in favor of you, Satan Prime!" It's still an industry, after all. Nevertheless, as far as the business of music is concerned, we do seem to be blessed with the curse of living in interesting times. Let's observe a moment of silence together and imagine a record company executive shitting a brick.
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at that Index Page
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Okay... Computer? Radiohead imitates some dude in a basement
As Radiohead's "historic" offer is now defunct and they show little interest in continuing as a download provider I'm decommissioning this review, so to speak. Read more here. I'm also downgrading my assessment to "shrugs" out of pure spite.
Of course I'm pushing two weeks behind the curve of the hype on the Radiohead "pay what you like" digital download of their latest album, In Rainbows.
And I'll admit: a part of me is a little annoyed by the degree of swooning, "this changes everything" coverage Radiohead's payment-optional experiment has received. I covered Jane Siberry doing this very thing in March of '06, and it was old news then (what Siberry calls "self-determined pricing" is still the standard at her site and it is still well worth checking out, incidentally). From "try it for free, buy if you feel it" presentations like Harvey Danger to every unsigned solo with free MP3s and a virtual tip jar, "payment optional" is hardly a new deal.
Even so, the distinction here is obvious. Radiohead is a major international act that has demonstrated its ability to debut an album at the top of the charts and sell a million copies in the U.S. alone. After wrapping up their contract with EMI in 2003 they could have rung up any of the major or major-minor labels and entered serious negotiations for a big money record deal. Not selling out is a different kind of decision when there are plenty of interested buyers with deep pockets.
And like a lot of people, I'm happy to see anything that motivates more public dialog about getting past the absurdly counterproductive artificial restrictions of the conventional market for music (and indeed for information in general).
So much for philosophy: on to the commerce experience.
I'll lead with the negatives. If Radiohead deserves bigger kudos for risking an unconventional distribution strategy as a big ticket act, then I give them worse marks for delivering a somewhat clunky, confusing sales experience. When I used it the website was very slow, and the actual transaction was not straightforward.
There are only two products for sale on the site - a costly (around $80 U.S.) discbox that includes vinyl LPs and CDs in premium packaging, and the price-unspecified digital download. Since a download is included in the price of the discbox, there is no reason to purchase more than one of these items. So the fact that the purchaser is forced to go through an "add item to cart/proceed to checkout" sales process is pointless and particularly irritating when each redundant click initiates another glacially slow page load (to add insult to injury, you have to click through two pointless front pages to get to the point where you can actually elect to purchase. I could have saved you the trouble by linking directly to the order page, but I'd hate for you to miss out on the complete Radiohead experience).
Now I could be accused of nitpicking, so I want to reiterate: to the extent that Radiohead made a statement about the roll affordable digital downloads can and should play in commercial music, they diluted this statement by delivering a poorly executed and tedious commerce experience.
Other cons included the fact that the site failed to deliver specifics about the download - format, number of tracks, or overall length - details I considered important to setting a price for the download (I eventually found these facts reported by third parties), some glitches in the checkout process resulting in getting kicked back to blank forms, and the fact that the download delivered only the MP3 tracks, no artwork or lyrics (I know I'm bucking established trends but damn it, delivering data is cheap. If you've got more, give it! Particularly when the purchaser's only options are a very expensive premium physical product versus a bare-bones digital download). Finally, I'm never thrilled when a purchase form requires I enter a mobile phone number. What if Radiohead won't stop texting me?
Moving on to the positives: I'd say that purchasing the album was not a terrible experience, merely substandard. Once I made it to the actual payment screen things went smoothly enough, and I quickly ended up with a link to a reasonably speedy download. The price was right - I elected to pay what I consider a very reasonable $3 (I'll tell you right now that my opinion that the general cost of music online is inflated is going to be an ongoing theme here) - which came out to £1.47. They tacked on a £0.45 service fee for a total £1.92 or about $3.92 U.S. For this I received a 48.4 MB zip archive of 10 160kbps MP3s. The tracks had correctly encoded metadata (mangled or absent track metadata is a HUGE pet peeve) so firing it up in iTunes was a cinch. I had successfully purchased my first Radiohead album. I liked it.
The bottom line: while I wouldn't tolerate this sort of technical incompetence from a website dedicated to selling digital music, I'm going to give Radiohead the benefit of the doubt in assuming that inexperience in the digital market and underestimating the volume of response the offer would receive were more at work in what was wrong with this transaction than actual indifference to the purchaser experience. So on the three point scale I just this moment invented of Props, Shrugs or Hate, I give Radiohead Props. Congratulations, Radiohead, you can now proudly display "the Phree Musique Blog gave the In Rainbows purchase site props!" on your website. Note: not anymore, as noted above. You mopey Limey bastards.
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at the Index Page
Of course I'm pushing two weeks behind the curve of the hype on the Radiohead "pay what you like" digital download of their latest album, In Rainbows.
And I'll admit: a part of me is a little annoyed by the degree of swooning, "this changes everything" coverage Radiohead's payment-optional experiment has received. I covered Jane Siberry doing this very thing in March of '06, and it was old news then (what Siberry calls "self-determined pricing" is still the standard at her site and it is still well worth checking out, incidentally). From "try it for free, buy if you feel it" presentations like Harvey Danger to every unsigned solo with free MP3s and a virtual tip jar, "payment optional" is hardly a new deal.
Even so, the distinction here is obvious. Radiohead is a major international act that has demonstrated its ability to debut an album at the top of the charts and sell a million copies in the U.S. alone. After wrapping up their contract with EMI in 2003 they could have rung up any of the major or major-minor labels and entered serious negotiations for a big money record deal. Not selling out is a different kind of decision when there are plenty of interested buyers with deep pockets.
And like a lot of people, I'm happy to see anything that motivates more public dialog about getting past the absurdly counterproductive artificial restrictions of the conventional market for music (and indeed for information in general).
So much for philosophy: on to the commerce experience.
I'll lead with the negatives. If Radiohead deserves bigger kudos for risking an unconventional distribution strategy as a big ticket act, then I give them worse marks for delivering a somewhat clunky, confusing sales experience. When I used it the website was very slow, and the actual transaction was not straightforward.
There are only two products for sale on the site - a costly (around $80 U.S.) discbox that includes vinyl LPs and CDs in premium packaging, and the price-unspecified digital download. Since a download is included in the price of the discbox, there is no reason to purchase more than one of these items. So the fact that the purchaser is forced to go through an "add item to cart/proceed to checkout" sales process is pointless and particularly irritating when each redundant click initiates another glacially slow page load (to add insult to injury, you have to click through two pointless front pages to get to the point where you can actually elect to purchase. I could have saved you the trouble by linking directly to the order page, but I'd hate for you to miss out on the complete Radiohead experience).
Now I could be accused of nitpicking, so I want to reiterate: to the extent that Radiohead made a statement about the roll affordable digital downloads can and should play in commercial music, they diluted this statement by delivering a poorly executed and tedious commerce experience.
Other cons included the fact that the site failed to deliver specifics about the download - format, number of tracks, or overall length - details I considered important to setting a price for the download (I eventually found these facts reported by third parties), some glitches in the checkout process resulting in getting kicked back to blank forms, and the fact that the download delivered only the MP3 tracks, no artwork or lyrics (I know I'm bucking established trends but damn it, delivering data is cheap. If you've got more, give it! Particularly when the purchaser's only options are a very expensive premium physical product versus a bare-bones digital download). Finally, I'm never thrilled when a purchase form requires I enter a mobile phone number. What if Radiohead won't stop texting me?
Moving on to the positives: I'd say that purchasing the album was not a terrible experience, merely substandard. Once I made it to the actual payment screen things went smoothly enough, and I quickly ended up with a link to a reasonably speedy download. The price was right - I elected to pay what I consider a very reasonable $3 (I'll tell you right now that my opinion that the general cost of music online is inflated is going to be an ongoing theme here) - which came out to £1.47. They tacked on a £0.45 service fee for a total £1.92 or about $3.92 U.S. For this I received a 48.4 MB zip archive of 10 160kbps MP3s. The tracks had correctly encoded metadata (mangled or absent track metadata is a HUGE pet peeve) so firing it up in iTunes was a cinch. I had successfully purchased my first Radiohead album. I liked it.
The bottom line: while I wouldn't tolerate this sort of technical incompetence from a website dedicated to selling digital music, I'm going to give Radiohead the benefit of the doubt in assuming that inexperience in the digital market and underestimating the volume of response the offer would receive were more at work in what was wrong with this transaction than actual indifference to the purchaser experience. So on the three point scale I just this moment invented of Props, Shrugs or Hate, I give Radiohead Props. Congratulations, Radiohead, you can now proudly display "the Phree Musique Blog gave the In Rainbows purchase site props!" on your website. Note: not anymore, as noted above. You mopey Limey bastards.
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at the Index Page
Digital Music Sellers Review Index
Note, January 17 2010: I won't be updating the index any longer. The way I've got it set up is just too tedious to modify for the nominal utility it offers.
Index of Digital Music Sellers reviewed on the Phree Musique blog. Updated as reviews are added. To submit a site for review or note a change, mistake or disappearance of any previously reviewed link please leave a comment on this entry.
Multiple Artist Sites
Site Link : Review Link : Site Notes and Genre Info : Bottom Line*
1. Amazon.com : Review : Eclectic catalog of mostly mainstream downloads, all genres : Props
2. eMusic : Review : One of the originals with a huge indie catalog : Props
3. iTunes Music Store : Review : Apple's original Big Box digital infotainment megastore : Shrugs
4. Rhapsody MP3 Downloads : Review : Routine retail with the bonus of full streaming previews : Props
Single Artist Sites
Site Link : Review Link : Site Notes and Genre Info : Bottom Line*
1. Radiohead DOWNLOAD SITE CLOSED : Review : Download site for single album, Alt Rock : Shrugs
2. Brad Sucks : Review : Two solid alt-rock albums with lots of diverse freebies on the site : Props
*Sites judged on 3 point scale from Hate to Shrugs to Props where Hate is bad and Props are good.
Index of Digital Music Sellers reviewed on the Phree Musique blog. Updated as reviews are added. To submit a site for review or note a change, mistake or disappearance of any previously reviewed link please leave a comment on this entry.
Multiple Artist Sites
Site Link : Review Link : Site Notes and Genre Info : Bottom Line*
1. Amazon.com : Review : Eclectic catalog of mostly mainstream downloads, all genres : Props
2. eMusic : Review : One of the originals with a huge indie catalog : Props
3. iTunes Music Store : Review : Apple's original Big Box digital infotainment megastore : Shrugs
4. Rhapsody MP3 Downloads : Review : Routine retail with the bonus of full streaming previews : Props
Single Artist Sites
Site Link : Review Link : Site Notes and Genre Info : Bottom Line*
1. Radiohead DOWNLOAD SITE CLOSED : Review : Download site for single album, Alt Rock : Shrugs
2. Brad Sucks : Review : Two solid alt-rock albums with lots of diverse freebies on the site : Props
*Sites judged on 3 point scale from Hate to Shrugs to Props where Hate is bad and Props are good.
We'll Get a New Deal for Christmas This Year
Previously on the Phree Musique blog...
I'd been posting links to free, available-for-the-download MP3s that were, to the best of my ability to determine, pretty much legal. Which equivocating phrase indicates that, even eschewing the gang of plainly illegal MP3 blogs which infest the Tubes, there was an awful lot of ambiguity in the free music biz.
Well, no more. We turn our attention now to music which is free as in, well, as in not free. While Apple, Amazon, EMI and Yahoo! have been making news lately by offering or at least talking about selling digital music without digital rights management (DRM) technology in place, many independent labels have been doing it for years. I'm going to try them all out and report back on the new digital music shopping experience.
My rules for inclusion:
1. You must be able to purchase digital files outright.
2. The files must be totally free of DRM. I'm not going to get into issues some have raised like dodgy, personally identifying metadata in the files (iTunes Plus) or overzealous terms of use (Amazon).
And that's about it. If you want to submit a site for review please leave a comment on the Index Page
I'd been posting links to free, available-for-the-download MP3s that were, to the best of my ability to determine, pretty much legal. Which equivocating phrase indicates that, even eschewing the gang of plainly illegal MP3 blogs which infest the Tubes, there was an awful lot of ambiguity in the free music biz.
Well, no more. We turn our attention now to music which is free as in, well, as in not free. While Apple, Amazon, EMI and Yahoo! have been making news lately by offering or at least talking about selling digital music without digital rights management (DRM) technology in place, many independent labels have been doing it for years. I'm going to try them all out and report back on the new digital music shopping experience.
My rules for inclusion:
1. You must be able to purchase digital files outright.
2. The files must be totally free of DRM. I'm not going to get into issues some have raised like dodgy, personally identifying metadata in the files (iTunes Plus) or overzealous terms of use (Amazon).
And that's about it. If you want to submit a site for review please leave a comment on the Index Page
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