drink more water!

and music should also be about convenience!

imagine that no matter where you are (in the car, at the office, walking around, on any computer, at a TV/media center) you could instantly access your entire digital music collection… whatever song or album you want.

that would be convenience! people would pay for that.

now, it’s whatever you have on your ipod (which is still a huge step forward from CDs) but you still have a general problem of syncing media up between various devices, storing and retrieving media, accessing music from remote locations.

the music industry needs to get it together and offer consumers a brilliant solution to accomplish this basic problem. or, more likely, it will be apple that will do it because the music industry doesn’t seem to be able to be proactive about technology.

For instance, while I loved the Talking Heads “Stop Making Sense” tour and movie, I find the album many of the songs were featured on, “Speaking in Tongues” more compelling (I’ve listened to the album dozens of times, but only saw the Heads twice on the tour, and the movie a couple times). Many truly classic albums, like Sgt Peppers or Never Mind The Bullocks or It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, are definitive documents in their own right, that weren’t surpassed on a stage by the original performers. The Beatles conceived it as an alternative to the drag their show had been reduced to by the venues and gear of the day.

Go back in time 200 years, and try to name the greatest performers of post-Colonial America. Hell, name ANY performer from that era… most have been long forgotten. Yet we remember great composers hundreds of years earlier than that. Performances only stand the test of time through recording. Reviews and written scores can be no closer to the “truth” of any performance than journalism is to dancing. The experience can only be described, but not recovered. Albums (and maybe bootleg recordings for jam bands) will define the artists for future fans, not their most legendary performances.

Anyway until live performances replicate and propagate the experience of great albums, this question remains open. For me, most times I’ll pass on the show and take a great record, thanks!

Now, as to the basic premise of the post… I entirely agree!

Amazon’s DRM-free 256K files are a great alternative to iTunes for iPod owners and everyone else. It could be better: give us lossless files, and I’ll pay as much as I do for the CD. But that’s just me…

The basic idea is this: Attractive digital products sell, like anything else (including water!). We can definitely learn some from the water guys, but we need to pay attention to all the current models that are already making money, and figure out not just how to position the product, but how to make it in some way better. Quality is an easy/obvious answer, but they needn’t stop there… look around!

Great post!

-d-

Forceps - I apologize for my horrendous grammar and spelling issues. Most punctuation marks look the same to me, so I can’t tell the difference.

_____I thought I would share how I personally manage the intellectual music property thing. When I was a kid, about 2 years ago (:P), and cassette tapes had just come out, I would share the albums I had actually purchased with 1 or 2 or 3 friends, and they would do the same. By which I mean, record them (I have never actually recorded any friends). And one might suppose this would have put a bit of a dent in artist and record company people profits, but this is not what happened. I have heard, but I cannot verify with amazing accuracy, that with the advent of recordable audio cassettes, record company and recording artists people profits actually ROSE about 10%. I am not exactly sure how, or I am just too lazy to fill in the blanks, but “pirating” at that juncture in technological history was “a good thing” if you were in the music record people business.

_____Move ahead 20 or so years, and we get Napster. A clever network of sleeping people too unconscious to remember they were actually stealing something that belonged to someone else. And here then came the nail in the proverbial coffin of music people tape copy exchange. The record business people took a loss of approximately 10%! in Napster specific record music people profit stuff merchandizing benefits.

_____So, to cut ahead to the chase of this statistical observation, buying an actual album, on actual physical material media, and loaning it to a few friends, without the benefit of instant and immediate file transfer gratification pleasure, for copy, is:

GOOD! for the record people business profit makers.

_____And, as one may or might have thusly deduced, buying a physical album, made of actually stuff you can get dust and scratches on, and piping it out to 200 hundred thousand sleeping people, is:

BAD! for the record people profit maker artist persons.

_____And as I really can’t deduce these deductions with any more conveniently obtainable accuracy than the above, I operate by what I refer to as The Speed Limit Grace Pace, SLGP, for short.

_____I live in California. Most the freeways in CA are 55 or 65 miles an hour, but you can safely drive 60 plus a nudge or 70 with a dash, respectively divulging, and the officers of lawfulness will not confuse you with people currently breaking the law, at the time you were currently not doing that. Therefore, as the crow flies…?

_____Buying 1 actual physical music wad on actual touchable media material, and loaning it to several friends to be recorded (though, I have never actually recorded friends, minus the notorious John Denver session that never happened), is like driving 60 in a 55 or 70 in a 65. Fast but not very dangerous, as speed limits are set lower than necessary, so that a being 5 or so over the limit is driving the ACTUAL safe speed limit. If the actually safe speed limit was 90, they would set it an approximate 85, but you get the gist.

_____And it goes without saying, that I have to say that posting just 1! album online for 668586757684 sleepers to share in the name of LUV, is like driving a whole lot faster than the posted speed limit, or exceeding your specific SLGP, else-wise known as The Speed Limit Grace Pace. One might assume or even presume that as recordable cassette tapes bumped music profits up 10%, and the Napster Conspiracy tore 10% profits from the bloated under and/or over belly of record people music places, people trafficking music exchanged or swapped over internet connections shall soon be pulled over for doing 70 in a 55, by which I mean they will argue that theft is alright as long as it is not YOUR stuff being stolen. You might notice that the former point detoured rather absurdly. You did not see that happen. If you say you saw that happen, I will deny it…

_____So, this is how i personally manage or justify my philosophy on music sharing of songs invented by people who all too frequently don’t share anything with anyone for even good reasons. If a friend or family member loans me a CD on actual retail purchased material product stuffs, I will copy it with only a hint of moral terror, arguing I am within the boundaries of my SLGP, which incidentally can be purchased pre owned on eBay for a reasonable price. But I will not rip off mp3 files. I only rip off the mp3 files I actually pay for and download from iTunes, which I might add is an Apple Industry juggernaught foisted by Apple Technology Professionals, who were probably loaded up on hallucinogenics* during the coding process, but I digest.

Brief Decorum - I clearly misspelled “juggernaught” while harshing this highly invested commentary, and the mac/apple spell checker caught it with the speed of cheese, and swiftly corrected it. Turns out juggernaught is actually misspelled “juggxrnaught.” You unlearn something new every day. It should also be noted that the apple/mac spell checker is unfamiliar with the word “hallucinogenics.” But in defense of apple, plurals can be confusing, this is why I only use words that cannot be pluralized, that way my mac operates according to specified diagnosis.

_____BUT WAIT! Duplicating albums or CD’’s “old school cassette” is still in fact, stealing! Plus, the ability to duplicate albums onto recordable cassettes was the horrifying beginning of what we now refer to as the illegal and immoral apprehending and/or obtaining of preowned intellectual property! Intellectual properly being a rather comical if not as well ironic term when you consider the quality of much of what is currently defined as hep tunage, but I dispossess. And if I may may elaborate just a more tad bit? But I don’t really feel like it, so I will toss in this question for consideration, study, or way sheik departure, depending on your politics.

_____In California, where I am presently acquainted about in maps, it is illegal to put big, small, or even medium sized change into someone else’s parking meter. The point being that the city makes way big bucks via illegal parking. How does this fun fact relate to, coincide with, approximate, divest regarding, or intrude upon the point and/or statistical (note - the word “statistical” is funny) or/and fact, that pirating your next door neighbors copy of “Mental Health” by Quiet Riot did in fact boost record company people profits an approximate 10% of moral silly? I choose to burden you with this profound if not absurd moral dilemma, cause I am presently tired of writing this even shortly.

Blessings,
Damon

Ps.
It should also be noted that nothing I have said here may in fact be true. But I only suggest that for legal purposes.

In fact if that service and player offered a vast catalogue with plenty of independent music, downloads in multiple formats, and played files obtained from other sources, I think that would probably be an item I would snatch up in a heartbeat.

No telling if that’ll actually happen, though.

I was going to say, I have to buy a bottle of water in a few hours at the airport, but I think I’ll bring a container instead and refill past security. ;)

It’s funny, after this discussion I spent last evening listening to Horace Silver’s Song for My Father. I know every note of every solo on that album. Now, I wouldn’t build that kind of relationship with subscription music … maybe I would with a download, provided I could take it anywhere (like these DRM-free MP3s).

How difficult is it to take a bottle, pour some home-filtered water in it, and put it in a bag with an ice pack so it stays cool? Difficult enough, it seems. Some lack the foresight, some don’t want to carry around extra baggage, some are just plain lazy.

Anyway, the issue isn’t the value of water, it is the value of being presented with the opportunity to enjoy a cold drink in a portable container when you happen to be thirsty. There is a difference.

You may think that Coke sells sugar water. You’re wrong. They’re a distribution network. This network ensures that their products are everywhere you happen to be thirsty. Coke is big trucks stopping at convenience stores and filling vending machines. People tend to think of a product as what is inside the bottle. In the case of coke, the product is almost irrelevant. It is everything that happens after you put the product inside the bottle that you’re paying for.

The same is true of the record industry. They’re responsible for everything that comes after the product is made, and this is all irrelevant in today’s world. All that is left is the product, and once you remove the costs of promotion and distribution, I still feel there is something left worth paying for.

As I’ve said before, this is how you gauge the value of ’something that’s ephemeral’ Ask yourself how you’d feel if it vanishes? All the music on your iPod is erased. Would you miss it?

There is the value.

I don’t think music is as much of a luxury or non-essential part of our lives as most people seem to think. I think it’s tied to our psychological well-being, for one… but I won’t elaborate on that, because I’d like to hear what other people say first.