The music industry is cheating you out of your right to own CDs! Yes, you heard it here first. They’d prefer if you download it, instead of buy it and own it on good old CDs. But before I go on to expound my little faux conspiracy theory, let’s make one thing clear: I do not resist technological progress (see, I even use ‘progress’, not ‘change’ – and this was a Freudian slip – trust me). In fact, I LOVE, as most of my friends will happily attest, gadgets. Music CD however, is, for the time being, a music lover’s best friend, and don’t let the throngs of clamoring music executives tell you otherwise!
My roots as a Gadget Man (an important distinction from a Gadget Freak, but this is not the place to explain) go all the way to my Dad who was the prototype for a modern day phenomena (keep in mind, the man was born in 1919). He brought home the first Sony ‘Hi Fi’ stereo system (back in the 70’s no less), and bought a Phillips color TV when no one, and I mean NO ONE had one within blocks of our house. So let me establish my credentials: I purchased a cellphone when it was weighing 1500lbs (including the car it was permanently attached to! – well ahead of the brick Motorola called a ‘portables’). The first cassette playing ‘Walkman’? Got my fresh and very expensive specimen shipped all the way from Europe (I was living in Israel at the time). This pretty and substantially constructed toy came from only one brand and had one model only: Sony. We’re talking early 80’s (and what a wonderful companion to my post-teen European trip ended up being because of it!). Jumping forward almost 20 years, and here I am purchasing one of the first hard drive based MP3 players, long before iPod was a glimmer in the eye of the all powerful, Mr. Disruptive Technology himself, Steve Jobs. For all of you who think iPod = iTunes = portable digital music, I have some news: the first company to turn this concept into a commercial success was a small French company called Archos. Theirs was a well formed 20 GB music machine running MP3 files, and it was not that different from today’s iPod, all things considered. I loved it of course. What a liberating device. You want to talk Blackberry? How about 3 of them shipped as a loaner from a nascent start up called RIM, way back in 1998 or so. Did I establish my credentials? Enough said!
So why on earth am I protecting our right to ‘keep our CDs?’ – otherwise an obsolete medium for transfer of digital audio?
Let me admit a couple of personal biases before I go on: my love for music is rooted in so called concept records. Back in the 50’s and 60’s the most popular form of “records” were no more than 4-6 minutes long short play (EPs) vinyl based discs that were perfect for distribution of hit singles. The whole music industry ’spun’ around those little widgets. Then in the 70’s Progressive Rock bands such as Pink Floyd, Crimson King and Rock musicians like David Bowie wrought operatic scale pieces that were substantially longer in their multi-track format. The era of the ‘concept record’ was born. In some ways, we’re coming full circle: many now download singles from iTunes on an impulse. The long play record is losing its grip in the market. And that’s all fine and dandy with me except that I still like whole records that are made of multiple tracks of a reasonably consistent (high) quality music. From REM, through Iron and Wine, to Panda Bear. Great music is made by musicians who can produce more than a few hit singles. But hey, that’s my own thing.
My second admission is this: even though I am not a ‘Stereophile’, I do enjoy reasonably high fidelity of sound playing in my car, iPod (yes, I sold out), PC, and my other music emitting locations at home. 128kbs MP3 files simply do not cut it except when more of them need to fit on my Nano when I’m cycling.
So, what’s my problem with downloadable music? My main concern is quality, longevity, some ownership and leverage. Let me illustrate my point.
I recently realized that some of my CDs have been RIPPed (converted) using lower bit rate than planned (resulting in less than optimal sound quality). Around the same time I thought about buying a system for wireless streaming of music using a product called Sonos. This platform allows for streaming of ‘lossless’ digital audio (essentially source-quality music – no compression and therefore no loss of quality – pretty much what’s coming off an audio CD). This confluence of events made me think about re-ripping all of my good old ‘red book’ CD collection (not a small task since I have hundreds of them). Since I own all of them outright, and they’re piled high in my basement, the process is fairly simple. Now let’s imagine I would have jumped on the iTunes bandwagon. That option would have been non existent. I would have owned a fairly inferior quality digital audio files with no way to ‘upgrade’. Some would say that I should use on line music stores (essentially, iTunes competitor) specializing in high quality digital file formats. But for the difference in price, why should I not buy and in fact own archival quality CDs that I can access at any time? (and as a bonus, have the lyrics and cover art). The price difference is relatively negligible. The flexibility and ‘leverage’ are limitless. Which essentially, is why many record companies and music executives will start realizing, that in the long run, contrary to their initial knee jerk reaction, extensive lobbying, and bullying (remember Jack Valenti?), it actually pays off to get us all away from music CDs.
Ultimately, I’d prefer to have a scheme by which I have perpetual access rights to music I ‘lease’ – which in turn will be always accessible on line, from any device at any time, not having to worry about CDs, RIPPing and all that none sense. But until this happens, don’t fall for the industry’s latest scheme: low quality audio files that are (mostly) DRM (copy) protected!
Down with the forces of reactionary neo-digitalism I say!
Oh, and one final thing: if you hear about a new gadget, a cellpone/smartphone/nano technology brain transmitter cache modifier that is safely and painlessly implantable directly into a human brain, count me in (after beta and all bugs have been worked out of course).
I read most of your article – admittedly not the entire article – but, i’d like to tell you that labels are not pushing dload sales in place of physical unit sales. In fact, most labels dont even yet have language to enable internet download sales of songs containing samples. Physical unit sales drive the music industry. If you ever look at a mechanical royalty statement, you would see how important those physical units are. Also, in the 40s and 50s, single sales were first generated on 45’s. Each side of that 45 was considered a unit (i.e., each double sided 45 was TWO sales).
I, too, carry an ipod. Its necessary in the music biz (if you’re traveling) to have your artist’s music available for listening w/out the necessity of having to carry a laptop.
Good article – just a little off beat for someone in the industry – like me.
Thanks for your feedback Jen. Much appreciated. In principle I agree that the industry (to the best of my outsider’s knowledge) is still thinking CD sales – to a fault. This mildly contrarian article is an attempt to predict that it won’t take long before media companies will reverse their thinking, for the very same reasons they tried to prevent the music industry from evolving into the new digital domain. To clarify this point of view, I’ve added the following paragraph to my article (the advantage of electronic publishing!):
“…(this)is why many record companies and music executives will start realizing, that in the long run, contrary to their initial knee-jerk reactions, lobbying, and bullying (remember Jack Valenti?), it actually pays off to get us all away from music CDs…”