I still like CDs, but only because I don’t trust hard drives to last, and because no one has yet figured out that lossless 24 bit recordings would be easy to distribute online. 16 bit mp3 is still often a step back in sound quality over CDs. Give me something better than CDs, not worse.

I could care less about having a physical object. Give me some nice pictures or video and I’ll be happy.

Daltry is also apparently unaware of the home studio revolution that happened during the 80’s and 90’s and the huge amount of new music that affordable recording equipment and CD manufacturing by outfits like Discmakers unleashed. I’ll take more available music over the supposed greatness of the LP any day.

I imagine that the sudden explosion of wax cylinders did a tad more to detroy the immediacy of the previous couple million years of music… wtf? Is anyone really so short-sighted?

It’s not as though artists benefitted financially from it. Noble Sissle got paid *once* per recording! The record companies were always there to skim 99% of the profit from all merchandise.

Are we still seriously debating the CD vs. the LP vs. the mp3?

How about LP-jeck-sized releases containing a CD, an mp3-CD and DVDs containing all track stems in surround sound? That’s what I’ve been dreaming of for 15 years now.

MP3 destroyed all that isn’t music. Vinyl albums with massive full-colour album art. Physical round discs that require touching and handling. “Personalised” scratches. These are not music. These are distractions. MP3 has purified music by destroying this distractions.

And now we have complaints that the general public are replacing these artist/label-provided distractions with their own distractions - namely life itself. THIS is personalisation. Previously we had to sit down to listen to music, to listen on the artist’s terms, to put the rest of our life on hold. Now we bring the music with us. It is no longer the soundtrack to our living room or our bedroom. Music is the soundtrack to the park, the bus or train, the office cubicle, the city streets, the suburbs.

Music is everywhere, and this is a bad thing? Music is more integrated into people’s lives than ever before, and this is a bad thing? Where people used to have a few dozen albums, they now have a few hundred, and this is a bad thing?

Free(er) from the physical contraints of the media, listeners are free(er) to enjoy music on their terms.

And likewise, artists and publishers are free(er) to publish music on their terms. Albums don’t have to be 50 minutes split into 12 songs. Look at NIN’s Ghosts. Look at iTunes “albums” that include digital booklets and music videos. Look at MySpace.

By reducing music to its pure essence - sound itself - and making it flexible and portable, MP3 has done what no other delivery medium before could do.

-Kim.

sweet album(s) though.

There is something to be said for the grandeur of vinyl, though, even if just for the gigantic artwork.

just to get some coverage for setting some sort of release record

Really, I think he’s just slightly crazy, makes lots of music, and has no boundaries with respect to what he does and doesn’t release.

I’ll be pretty suprised if there are 30 good songs in the entire lot.

If you see him live (totally recommended) he does have a couple dozen he’s known to play most often.

The CD was a confidence trick

Tell that to Yasunao Tone. I don’t think “Solo for Wounded CD” would have been the same on vinyl, and it was based mostly on the “personality” of the scratched CD.

Daltry’s got it all wrong. While the digitalization of music destroyed the album format, there is more music being listened to and consumed today than ever before. What Daltry doesn’t recognize is that games like Rock Band have enabled fans to engage with music in ways not possible during the Who’s hey day. The game has also helped a new generation of kids to discover the who, who wouldn’t otherwise listen to them.

I too, however, often lament at the decline of the album as a format. I loved listening to an entire album, all the way through, to get an idea of the work as a whole and to appreciate the progression of the album. Now, with Itunes and Pandora, most people don’t do that. Every track has its own life and albums are merely the sum of all the tracks, instead of a cohesive work.

For this reason, we have a new policy in our office at mixmatchmusic. As of 3 weeks ago, everyday we have an album of the day. While the morning is spent listening to Pandora/NPR/Itunes Shuffle, in the afternoon, we select an album and listen to the entire thing. Its been awesome!!