Only the Very Greatest Hits, a collection of my favorite recordings of my original music from the last 10 years, is available for sale as a digital download. You can preview the whole album here, and here's a sample:
I've been working on this collection for several months, and arranged for it to be published online soon after I finished writing the 2,000th Song of the Day.
In April of 1998 (I'll be announcing a 10 year anniversary event shortly) I began writing the first sequence of the song of the day project (A.K.A. Songs of Days volumes 1-7) which persisted for 1,001 consecutive lyrics. I took a break of about 5 years. On Friday, January 25 2008 I wrote "Beautiful," the 999th song of the current sequence (titled A Song A Day second iteration: The Book of Hours - volumes 1-6 and counting...).
Comics artist Dave Sim wrote: The cliché (which isn't a cliché, it's the truth) is that you have two thousand bad pages in you and until you draw them, you won't start producing good pages.
I realize it's just a number but even so I've been looking forward to it. In celebration of having written my 2,000th bad song, I'm publishing a album of what I feel is my best recorded solo work. The album has 29 tracks of 160 kbps MP3s and comes with artwork and lyrics, and costs $1.35 for an 85-odd MB digital download. That is $1.35 total cost transacted through PayPal. PayPal will accept payments via credit cards from non-PayPal members. If you're determined to have the album but don't want to use PayPal or a credit card, email me and we'll come to an arrangement.
Although it shows many hallmarks of amateur production, I am pleased with and proud of this album, and I feel that it's an excellent value. If you're feeling starved for text you can read a long essay about issues of pricing here.
Buy it here.
The first 5,000 purchasers will receive, absolutely free of charge, a copy via email of the lyrics for the 2,000th song of the day projects song and free access to unlimited copies of it, once it gets recorded, someday. Everyone else will have to wait 1,764 songs (1,764 days plus however many I skip) for it to be published normally in the Fairly Secret Song of the Day blog.
Write a review of your Digital Commerce Experience at Spirit of Salt Dot Com. It could appear on the internet!
Donations Suck! Thank you for supporting the Phree Musique blog, the Fairly Secret Song of the Day blog, and of course the Jonathan Mark Hamlow 2nd Lifetime Memorial Text Museum by purchasing this album.
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at that Index Page
Thursday, January 24, 2008
On Pricing
The cost of my new digital album is $1.35. The simple explanation of how I arrive at this figure is that it nets me about a dollar. If a nobody like me somehow got a record deal it would be a reasonably thrilling to realize a $1 per album royalty. Thus do I explain what would otherwise be an excessively low price by almost any going standard.
For this price you get 29 160 kbps MP3s, a digital cover image and a rich text format file of album notes and lyrics. The album is 47.3 minutes long and the whole package is 86.4 MB of data.
My feelings about pricing for digital downloads of music are complicated but easily summarized: I think they are uniformly far too expensive.
Consider a minute music pricing in the conventional model. Let’s say I head over to the Billboard charts, find the number one album de jour (As I Am by Alicia Keys), and then head over to Sam Goody for the purchase price. It doesn’t get more conventional than that, Right? The price when I engaged in this exercise (well, I didn’t actually purchase it, but you know) is $16.99 for a 14 track album with a duration of about 50 minutes. That works out to $1.21 per track.
As far as I’m concerned $0.99 a track at iTunes is pretty much the same price. The accepted standard for a digital downloads, which can be placed unreservedly at the feet of Apple, falls squarely inside the conventional model. I’ve got a problem with this because I think a number of factors should mitigate the download costs as compared to CDs:
1. Lossy compression (encoding tracks in a lower-fidelity format like MP3) should reduce the price of the digital information
2. Lack of physical media, which serves as a data backup, and is still necessary when a computer or MP3 player isn’t available (e.g. I have to burn copies of my digital downloads on media I pay for to use them in my car), and lack of physical packaging (lyrics and artwork) should reduce the price of the digital information.
These issues are basically built into the digital download package - artwork and lyrics are seldom included and MP3s are the standard format. For these issues alone I think Apple’s $0.99 standard is too high. I also think a number of contextual issues should affect the price of a digital download. This is getting into territory where my opinions are more idiosyncratic.
3. Cultural prevalence and lack of currency. I think newer and rarer materials command a natural premium. They’re fresh, they haven’t been played out in the various public arenas. They tend more to represent an individual’s immediate work and there tend to be production costs that must still be covered. Conversely, the older and more common something is, the less willing I am to pay a premium cost. On a very basic level of practical value, I am comparing the price of the download to the price of a used CD, a comparison more suited to its availability and ubiquity.
This gets into my general rejection of the idea of uniform pricing. It’s another one I blame on Apple and while it might have made sense in the very restricted context of launching the iTunes Music Store it makes no sense in the evolving real marketplace of digital music downloads. If I went into Cheapo Records and found them charging the same price for a used copy of Dark Side of the Moon as for a brand new copy of the latest from, say, Tinariwen (I just picked the first thing of Pitchfork’s top fifty albums of the year list), I'd turn around and walk right out again. Of course I allowed the Apple iTunes Music Store to do just that thing to me not six months ago, but that was a gift card and prices just didn't seem that important.
In any case, I know the analogy doesn’t hold up. For one thing, I’ll download Tinariwen off of eMusic for less than 3 dollars, but that’s a whole other conversation. We’re talking conceptual spaces here, okay? Whatever, anyway:
4. The rare factor is mitigated by music quality, sound quality, and degree of independence of production and distribution. Music and sound quality are easy: less quality should mean less cost. Relatively, of course, all of these value judgments are relative. I’ve paid for plenty of low-fi, home recorded, even somewhat less than professionally played music. Let’s not be coy: if you purchase my greatest “hits” album, you will be purchasing an album of songs that are low-fi, home recorded, and yes, somewhat less than professionally played. I would be loathe to pay full retail CD cost for them, no matter how much I love some of the misbehavers.
Independence, though, can work both ways. On one hand I understand that independents have to support themselves, they do not have an organization to carry them or exploit economies of scale on their behalves. On the other hand, there are less mouths to feed between you and the artist, less overhead. On the other hand, it is almost certainly more work for the artist. I respect and want to support the artist who is starving one of the big four of their corporate graft, of money spent to people who are both stupid and, excuse me, assholes. But I expect them to cut me in on at least a small consideration of that action.
All of these things added up together translate to, you pay $1.35 for my album as opposed to, say, $7.99 for higher quality MP3s of Yellowcard’s Live from Las Vegas at the Palms, which is the first thing I see when I open a window onto the iTunes Music Store. Which is, like, what the fuck, Apple. Yellowcard? I’ve never even heard of it.
But it’s on iTunes Plus meaning I’m going to end up purchasing the goddamn thing, sight unseen (dear iTMS and eMusic, your live previews suck, love Jon). To review it, it’s like, you know, symmetry.
Anyway.
That’s like a saving of $6.64, two cents less than the Discount of the Beast! And may I thank you most kindly for your consideration.
By Sunday, I review my experience purchasing the Yellowjackets ahem, sorry, I mean Yellowcard from the iTunes Music Store iTunes Plus. Let me just drop a slight spoiler here: it’s not going to be a positive review. I’m gonna keep an eye on those Yellowjackets guys, though. I probably need a little jazz-fusion in my collection.
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at that Index Page
For this price you get 29 160 kbps MP3s, a digital cover image and a rich text format file of album notes and lyrics. The album is 47.3 minutes long and the whole package is 86.4 MB of data.
My feelings about pricing for digital downloads of music are complicated but easily summarized: I think they are uniformly far too expensive.
Consider a minute music pricing in the conventional model. Let’s say I head over to the Billboard charts, find the number one album de jour (As I Am by Alicia Keys), and then head over to Sam Goody for the purchase price. It doesn’t get more conventional than that, Right? The price when I engaged in this exercise (well, I didn’t actually purchase it, but you know) is $16.99 for a 14 track album with a duration of about 50 minutes. That works out to $1.21 per track.
As far as I’m concerned $0.99 a track at iTunes is pretty much the same price. The accepted standard for a digital downloads, which can be placed unreservedly at the feet of Apple, falls squarely inside the conventional model. I’ve got a problem with this because I think a number of factors should mitigate the download costs as compared to CDs:
1. Lossy compression (encoding tracks in a lower-fidelity format like MP3) should reduce the price of the digital information
2. Lack of physical media, which serves as a data backup, and is still necessary when a computer or MP3 player isn’t available (e.g. I have to burn copies of my digital downloads on media I pay for to use them in my car), and lack of physical packaging (lyrics and artwork) should reduce the price of the digital information.
These issues are basically built into the digital download package - artwork and lyrics are seldom included and MP3s are the standard format. For these issues alone I think Apple’s $0.99 standard is too high. I also think a number of contextual issues should affect the price of a digital download. This is getting into territory where my opinions are more idiosyncratic.
3. Cultural prevalence and lack of currency. I think newer and rarer materials command a natural premium. They’re fresh, they haven’t been played out in the various public arenas. They tend more to represent an individual’s immediate work and there tend to be production costs that must still be covered. Conversely, the older and more common something is, the less willing I am to pay a premium cost. On a very basic level of practical value, I am comparing the price of the download to the price of a used CD, a comparison more suited to its availability and ubiquity.
This gets into my general rejection of the idea of uniform pricing. It’s another one I blame on Apple and while it might have made sense in the very restricted context of launching the iTunes Music Store it makes no sense in the evolving real marketplace of digital music downloads. If I went into Cheapo Records and found them charging the same price for a used copy of Dark Side of the Moon as for a brand new copy of the latest from, say, Tinariwen (I just picked the first thing of Pitchfork’s top fifty albums of the year list), I'd turn around and walk right out again. Of course I allowed the Apple iTunes Music Store to do just that thing to me not six months ago, but that was a gift card and prices just didn't seem that important.
In any case, I know the analogy doesn’t hold up. For one thing, I’ll download Tinariwen off of eMusic for less than 3 dollars, but that’s a whole other conversation. We’re talking conceptual spaces here, okay? Whatever, anyway:
4. The rare factor is mitigated by music quality, sound quality, and degree of independence of production and distribution. Music and sound quality are easy: less quality should mean less cost. Relatively, of course, all of these value judgments are relative. I’ve paid for plenty of low-fi, home recorded, even somewhat less than professionally played music. Let’s not be coy: if you purchase my greatest “hits” album, you will be purchasing an album of songs that are low-fi, home recorded, and yes, somewhat less than professionally played. I would be loathe to pay full retail CD cost for them, no matter how much I love some of the misbehavers.
Independence, though, can work both ways. On one hand I understand that independents have to support themselves, they do not have an organization to carry them or exploit economies of scale on their behalves. On the other hand, there are less mouths to feed between you and the artist, less overhead. On the other hand, it is almost certainly more work for the artist. I respect and want to support the artist who is starving one of the big four of their corporate graft, of money spent to people who are both stupid and, excuse me, assholes. But I expect them to cut me in on at least a small consideration of that action.
All of these things added up together translate to, you pay $1.35 for my album as opposed to, say, $7.99 for higher quality MP3s of Yellowcard’s Live from Las Vegas at the Palms, which is the first thing I see when I open a window onto the iTunes Music Store. Which is, like, what the fuck, Apple. Yellowcard? I’ve never even heard of it.
But it’s on iTunes Plus meaning I’m going to end up purchasing the goddamn thing, sight unseen (dear iTMS and eMusic, your live previews suck, love Jon). To review it, it’s like, you know, symmetry.
Anyway.
That’s like a saving of $6.64, two cents less than the Discount of the Beast! And may I thank you most kindly for your consideration.
By Sunday, I review my experience purchasing the Yellowjackets ahem, sorry, I mean Yellowcard from the iTunes Music Store iTunes Plus. Let me just drop a slight spoiler here: it’s not going to be a positive review. I’m gonna keep an eye on those Yellowjackets guys, though. I probably need a little jazz-fusion in my collection.
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at that Index Page
Friday, January 18, 2008
Stupid linear progression of time.
My best intentions founder under the weight of commitment and necessity, overwhelming my schedule so thoroughly that I can't even find the time to buy cheap music. Soon, soon I say! In the meantime, some extracurricular reading - another link roundup in what is surely shaping up to be an unprecedented year for the transformation of commercial music distribution.
Radiohead Revisited: Critics didn't give In Rainbows, the object Radiohead's alternative distribution experiment, a whole lotta love - but while the band was initially cagey with download and sales figures (inspiring a crop of disputed rumors), figures cited in a Wired interview between frontman Thom Yorke and longtime genre-buster David Byrne confirmed that the online album was an unqualified commercial success.
An interesting though less discussed fact is the apparent success of the ultra-atomic alternative to the digital download, the costly discbox with its vinyl 12" 45s (about as old school as it gets) and enhanced CD. While sales figures are again ambiguous, there's little doubt it's in the vicinity of 100,000 - at around $80 a pop, certainly a money-maker. The ironic footnote to the story is that while demonstrating the potential of pure digital distribution Radiohead simultaneously confirmed that the opulent physical package the CD era left behind still has a solid place in the business of music (another Wired article presents an interesting take on the ongoing impact of vinyl). Is the conventional industry really taking note of either lesson?
(Well, EMI is certainly trying, although with disappointingly dickhead timing to coincide with the independent release of the conventional CD of In Rainbows, and attended by total exclusion of the band from the release, and whiny statements to the press about the break with Radiohead being the sole fault of the band's unfair demands in their final negotiations. The thing is, there might be plenty of truth in EMI's side of things. But the devil is in the details, which combine to give the impression that the message EMI wants to put out is, we're certainly willing to try new things if it looks like there's some money in it, but screwing over artists is still Job Number 1! Even the ones that get it don't get it).
Byrne's article on the variety of distribution options available to artists today makes a nice companion to the Yorke interview. While there is nothing particularly earth-shattering in the facts presented (particularly to anyone who has been following these developments in the business of music), it is a nicely organized and presented package of these facts - and Byrne brings both a breadth of experience and a viewpoint that is relatively free of rhetoric and politics that make the article a must-read for this topic.
Moving on: I have mixed feelings about Ian Rogers. He doesn't miss an opportunity to insert the Yahoo! brand into the discussion (to be fair, it sort of is his job), and I think he's overselling the "context as product" message. But he's got interesting things to say, and he's not afraid to repeatedly tell the Industry that they've still got their heads up their asses. He's refined his pitch in this presentation to the Aspen Live Conference, and it's worth a read.
Finally: and then there were none. Second to last DRM-free holdout Warner Brothers announced near the end of the year that they would be allowing the sale of MP3s through Amazon's digital store. And finally, Sony BMG succumbed. The spectacle of the once and future king of failed proprietary formats, stinging from the interminable rootkit CD scandal and the humiliating failure of the once-mighty Walkman brand in the MP3 player market, dragging its ass in dead last in the move to abandon the technical and marketing fiasco of DRM, honestly invites speculation on whether being the biggest douchebag in the room is actually a branding strategy.
You have to keep this in perspective: Napster the First demonstrated an overwhelming demand for a simple, straightforward product, the MP3, almost a decade ago. It is easy to fall for the industry fallacy, which is that all Napster was about was pricing, or the lack thereof. And of course getting things free was attractive, and important to the meteoric rise of Napster. But it wasn't the whole story. People who understood also wanted MP3s because they made a digital music collection manageable by a ordinary home computer possible. Apple understood this and made a pile of money out of the fact with iTunes and iPods. People like me were dreaming a decade ago of a world where there was no need for anything to ever be allowed to fall out of print, and where reasonably priced singles were no longer the sole domain of flavor-of-the-month pop hits. And it was hard to believe it could take more than a couple of years. As I say, it's been almost ten and we're STILL not there. There is nothing impressive or laudable about the record industry's grudging stumble into this marketplace. Anyone will grasp at straws when they're sliding into a ditch.
Enough of that. An elephant in the bedroom that doesn't seem to be getting much discussion is the fact that the majority of tracks available on at Apples iTunes Music Store are still saddled with DRM. I mean, I sure as hell won't buy another FairTunes-encumbered track. If it's not on Amazon yet I'll wait it out. Many are saying the rectification of the entire iTMS catalog is inevitable - and it probably is - but the fact that Amazon has been allowed to scoop Apple so badly on DRM-free major-label downloads has to mean something, and I'm honestly confused there isn't more speculation about it. It is frankly an embarrassment to Apple, particularly in the context of Steve Job's famous essay. Could it really be a general industry move to punish Apple for past hubris? That seems like a Pyrrhic bit of revenge at best. Is it about Apple's notorious resistance to variable pricing? In that case the shame is on Apple, particularly when Amazon is generally undercutting their prices. Or did Amazon quietly cut some sweetheart profit-sharing deals in exchange for at least temporary exclusion of Apple from the lion's share of the DRM free market? If you hear anything, let me know.
Okay, jeeze I'm a windbag. More reviews soon, I promise. I'm thinking about trying out the MySpace/Snocap thing. Anybody got any artist recommendations? Just kidding, I know nobody's reading this. Oh, I laugh through the tears. Back soon!
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at that Index Page
Radiohead Revisited: Critics didn't give In Rainbows, the object Radiohead's alternative distribution experiment, a whole lotta love - but while the band was initially cagey with download and sales figures (inspiring a crop of disputed rumors), figures cited in a Wired interview between frontman Thom Yorke and longtime genre-buster David Byrne confirmed that the online album was an unqualified commercial success.
An interesting though less discussed fact is the apparent success of the ultra-atomic alternative to the digital download, the costly discbox with its vinyl 12" 45s (about as old school as it gets) and enhanced CD. While sales figures are again ambiguous, there's little doubt it's in the vicinity of 100,000 - at around $80 a pop, certainly a money-maker. The ironic footnote to the story is that while demonstrating the potential of pure digital distribution Radiohead simultaneously confirmed that the opulent physical package the CD era left behind still has a solid place in the business of music (another Wired article presents an interesting take on the ongoing impact of vinyl). Is the conventional industry really taking note of either lesson?
(Well, EMI is certainly trying, although with disappointingly dickhead timing to coincide with the independent release of the conventional CD of In Rainbows, and attended by total exclusion of the band from the release, and whiny statements to the press about the break with Radiohead being the sole fault of the band's unfair demands in their final negotiations. The thing is, there might be plenty of truth in EMI's side of things. But the devil is in the details, which combine to give the impression that the message EMI wants to put out is, we're certainly willing to try new things if it looks like there's some money in it, but screwing over artists is still Job Number 1! Even the ones that get it don't get it).
Byrne's article on the variety of distribution options available to artists today makes a nice companion to the Yorke interview. While there is nothing particularly earth-shattering in the facts presented (particularly to anyone who has been following these developments in the business of music), it is a nicely organized and presented package of these facts - and Byrne brings both a breadth of experience and a viewpoint that is relatively free of rhetoric and politics that make the article a must-read for this topic.
Moving on: I have mixed feelings about Ian Rogers. He doesn't miss an opportunity to insert the Yahoo! brand into the discussion (to be fair, it sort of is his job), and I think he's overselling the "context as product" message. But he's got interesting things to say, and he's not afraid to repeatedly tell the Industry that they've still got their heads up their asses. He's refined his pitch in this presentation to the Aspen Live Conference, and it's worth a read.
Finally: and then there were none. Second to last DRM-free holdout Warner Brothers announced near the end of the year that they would be allowing the sale of MP3s through Amazon's digital store. And finally, Sony BMG succumbed. The spectacle of the once and future king of failed proprietary formats, stinging from the interminable rootkit CD scandal and the humiliating failure of the once-mighty Walkman brand in the MP3 player market, dragging its ass in dead last in the move to abandon the technical and marketing fiasco of DRM, honestly invites speculation on whether being the biggest douchebag in the room is actually a branding strategy.
You have to keep this in perspective: Napster the First demonstrated an overwhelming demand for a simple, straightforward product, the MP3, almost a decade ago. It is easy to fall for the industry fallacy, which is that all Napster was about was pricing, or the lack thereof. And of course getting things free was attractive, and important to the meteoric rise of Napster. But it wasn't the whole story. People who understood also wanted MP3s because they made a digital music collection manageable by a ordinary home computer possible. Apple understood this and made a pile of money out of the fact with iTunes and iPods. People like me were dreaming a decade ago of a world where there was no need for anything to ever be allowed to fall out of print, and where reasonably priced singles were no longer the sole domain of flavor-of-the-month pop hits. And it was hard to believe it could take more than a couple of years. As I say, it's been almost ten and we're STILL not there. There is nothing impressive or laudable about the record industry's grudging stumble into this marketplace. Anyone will grasp at straws when they're sliding into a ditch.
Enough of that. An elephant in the bedroom that doesn't seem to be getting much discussion is the fact that the majority of tracks available on at Apples iTunes Music Store are still saddled with DRM. I mean, I sure as hell won't buy another FairTunes-encumbered track. If it's not on Amazon yet I'll wait it out. Many are saying the rectification of the entire iTMS catalog is inevitable - and it probably is - but the fact that Amazon has been allowed to scoop Apple so badly on DRM-free major-label downloads has to mean something, and I'm honestly confused there isn't more speculation about it. It is frankly an embarrassment to Apple, particularly in the context of Steve Job's famous essay. Could it really be a general industry move to punish Apple for past hubris? That seems like a Pyrrhic bit of revenge at best. Is it about Apple's notorious resistance to variable pricing? In that case the shame is on Apple, particularly when Amazon is generally undercutting their prices. Or did Amazon quietly cut some sweetheart profit-sharing deals in exchange for at least temporary exclusion of Apple from the lion's share of the DRM free market? If you hear anything, let me know.
Okay, jeeze I'm a windbag. More reviews soon, I promise. I'm thinking about trying out the MySpace/Snocap thing. Anybody got any artist recommendations? Just kidding, I know nobody's reading this. Oh, I laugh through the tears. Back soon!
See previous reviews and submit sites for review at that Index Page
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