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
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