12 posts tagged “music”
Coldplay's new album Viva la Vida is out this week but this won't be a commentary on the album since I haven't listened to it. I saw it at the store, picked it up, looked at it and put it back down. I'm not a Coldplay fan, I find their music a little repetitive on long listenings but for $10, I would have picked it up and yet, I couldn't find a compelling reason to buy it. It just looked like I didn't need to care about what was inside, it just didn't feel exciting or anything. It didn't feel like I was buying an album so much as a piece of cardstock with a piece of plastic sandwiched in between, probably because that's literally what it was.
Lately, I've seen quite a few new releases issued in what looks like the packaging that those free AOL discs came in, flimsy paper packaging wrapped up in shrink wrap. I mistakenly bought Sheryl Crow's Detours album and to be honest, I haven't even felt like opening it since I already have it in MP3 format. There just isn't anything inside the packaging that I feel I need to own that I can't already get in pure digital formats.
This isn't to say that all albums need to come in the boring jewel cases. In contrast, Nine Inch Nails is the best example of a properly manufactured paper album. It's always interesting to see the amount of creativity and artwork that goes into the albums. Ghosts is a two disc set nicely mounted on plastic and has a 16 page insert in full colour. Year Zero is a similar single disc set with two flaps, a 24 page colour insert and a remarkable heat sensitive disc that goes in your CD player black and comes out white. Even the Broken EP comes in a 3-way folding flap on thicker card stock. Or take a look at Hed Kandi's Winter Chill, a two disc set with beautiful vector graphics by Jason Brooks printed on gloss with a magnetic closure flap. Remarkably, all the NIN albums are available for around $10 (the Hed Kandi album was pretty pricy being a British import).
This isn't about "judging a book by it's cover". What this feels like to me is that the record companies and distributers are cutting corners to cut costs in an industry that is receding due to more popular pure digital distribution methods like iTunes and Amazon (and Torrents). What they fail to understand (and what I think Trent Reznor gets) is that those people who still buy their albums (like me) do so because they are fans and collectors of not just the music but also the music albums. I like to feel like I am actually buying a physical product with my $10, otherwise I'll just get the album online. The industry is so completely out of tune with what fans and collectors want, they are just shooting themselve in the foot at this point.
Once again, our politicians have completely failed us by listening to those well-paid advisors and lawyers of media distribution companies who are interested in lining their own pockets with even more money than those who actually represent the rights of artists and content creators. The woefully incompetent Conservative government of Canada has put on the table reform copyright Bill C-61 based on the failed method of allowing distribution companies to sue based on non-commercial copyright infringements.
What we have seen from the U.S. implementation of a similar scheme is the suing of normal consumers for uses of digital content that in many cases are deemed normal and fair-use. The model has not prevented copyright infringements, it has shown that it does not help artists and content creators, it has proven to be counterproductive. Yet, the Conservative government blatently ignores all of this and goes and follows in the groove of a failing industry that has completely lost touch with technology.
The CMCC (Canadian Music Creators Coalition) is against the bill as are many other organizations and (so it seems) the vast majority of Canadians.
"The question is, who gains from this bill?" explained Brendan Canning, co-founder of Broken Social Scene and a CMCC member. "It's not musicians. Musicians don't need lawsuits, we don't need DRM protection. These aren't the things that help us or our careers. What we do need is a government that is willing to sit down with all the stakeholders and craft a balanced copyright policy for Canada that will not repeat the mistakes made in the United States."
This bill is an absolute failure and I hope that others will realize it before it comes to pass as an actual law. I'm still optimistic since the Conservatives are holding a rocky minority government and it smells like an election should be due sometime soon (this fall?) so this bill may never see the light of day.
Nine Inch Nails is touring North America and will be visiting Toronto at the Air Canada Center on August 5th, 2008. Advanced tickets will be on sale soon (around $45 $75) and I'll probably see if I can snag a couple... Dammit, completely sold out in 15 minutes while I was trying to make up my mind which seats I wanted! So close!
More awesome NIN news, Trent Reznor has released a brand new album, The Slip as a completely free, creative commons license work. You can download the album for free and encouraged to share and remix it to your hearts content. CD and vinyl versions to come in July.
It's amazing to see all these albums coming out within such a short timespan, I suspect he has a backlog of stuff that he's been hording, keeping them away from the record companies and releasing them all now that he's a free agent.
I first saw Sarah Slean perform at the Toronto Street Festival (1998 or 1999?). I recall this petite girl in a black dress walk onto a stage set up in the middle of Yonge Street with busy crowds walking around in all directions and seated herself in front of an electric keyboard. She looked rather timid and strangely out of place, a single person on stage in front of a bustling crowd of passerbys. When she started playing it was like a spark of magic and my jaw dropped and was amazed with the soft sound of a piano accompanied by a beautifully sad voice. I looked around and remember seeing everyone else frozen with faces - like mine - transfixed on the girl on stage, a relatively unknown local musician with clearly so much talent. I was mesmerized.
So I'm thrilled to have followed her through multiple successes in her albums, Night Bugs, Day One, and newly released this week, The Baroness. There's something special and powerful that strikes you with each quiver in her voice that I can't explain.
It looks like Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails has been busy with his keyboards, synthesizers and his MacBook Pro. I usually expect him to release albums every four or five years or so as he has been notoriously known to do, so I was surprised to see him release Halo 26, titled Ghosts I-IV so soon after fulfilling his contract with Interscope Records. The album is released directly from his NIN website in multiple formats (preorders shipping May 1):
- First volume for free (direct download, streaming or bittorrent)
- All four volumes in high bitrate DRM-free MP3, FLAC or iTunes formats for $5
- Full 2-CD set for $10
- Deluxe Edition 2-CD, DVD with multitracks, Blu-Ray recordings for $75
- Limited Edition - same as Deluxe except with an extra vinyl set, limited print and hand signed and numbered by Trent Reznor for a whopping $300 (only 2500 available)
Following Reznor's multiple disputes with the record industry, he's licensing the entire album under a non-commercial, share-alike Creative Commons license which makes the album free for public performances and remixes, which is quite revolutionary.
I've been listening to the instrumental only album and it sounds very experimental and textured while retaining that classic NIN sound. But it's all one grand experiment and as far as the album goes, it works. Unfortunately, the experimental distribution method didn't...
The new Nine Inch Nails record is available RIGHT NOW (kind of). YES WE FUCKED UP! We thought we bought enough beer but too many of you showed up for the party. We are fixing the Ghosts site right now, I am told it will be back up 100% in a few hours.
Oh well, the party's just getting started and Trent Reznor's making a few beer runs at the moment, so I'm sure everything will turn out just fine.
21 tracks selected from over 200 fan submitted Nine Inch Nails remixes, The Limitless Potential is now available as a free open source download*.
Year Zero is selling for $34.99 Australian dollars ($29.10 US). No wonder people steal music. Avril Lavigne's record in the same store was $21.99 ($18.21 US). By the way, when I asked a label rep about this his response was: "It's because we know you have a real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when you put something out - you know, true fans. It's the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy.
Well, in Brisbane I end up meeting and greeting some record label people, who are pleasant enough, and one of them is a sales guy, so I say "Why is this the case?" He goes "Because your packaging is a lot more expensive". I know how much the packaging costs -- it costs me, not them, it costs me 83 cents more to have a CD with the colour-changing ink on it. I'm taking the hit on that, not them.
I've garnered a core audience that you feel it's OK to rip off? F--- you
They're thieves. I don't blame people for stealing music if this is the kind of s--- that they pull off.
So thumbs up to Reznor for holding the contest and allowing fans to use his copyrighted work as they saw fit and seeing some pretty amazing results. And thanks for paying the 83 cents for the colour changing disc - it's the coolest CD in my collection and even happier that I wasn't ripped off in getting it (I think I paid $12).
Official site and The Limitless Potential (* download link removed due to high demand, official Mininova torrent tracker also down. Try this tracker instead).
Q&A with Trent Reznor (May, 2007).
Related stuff: check out The Chemical Brothers Push the Button remix, Flip the Switch.
I decided to listen to some more Canadian Indie music (cuz we Canadians know how to be hip), so I bought a few albums.
The Zunes have been released for a few weeks now and just in time, because I've been meaning to buy a new MP3 player for a while. Mmm mmm, shiny brown brick of plastic and some wonderfully funny reviews here, here, here, and notoriously hehehere. Okay, I kid.
The acceptance of the Zune looks pretty bad, mediocre at best. To be fair, hardware wise it seems to be a pretty average MP3 player, nothing outstanding, nothing terribly bad. I'm sure Microsoft will just dump more money into this project until they have a better second generation product. The software seems to have a few kinks to be worked out and takes too long to install but I think a few patches will fix it.
The real problem I see is it tries too hard to be hip and I think they failed pretty miserably in that department at least - which is just embarrassing. Unless Microsoft can seriously change their company values and persona, I don't think this is something they can fix by pouring money into.
...And just for kicks... 24 hour battery life? Not if I can help it. The 1/4" jack and 3.5mm adapter is actually longer in length as the Nano itself.
It shouldn't be news to anyone that the music industry is in a slump and sales are down. While the record companies like to point fingers at music piracy as the source of their problems, I don't think that can really fool anyone who really appreciates music as an art.
Truth is, the music industry is stagnant with the marketing of cookie-cutter formulas for music that results in a lack of originality and not surprisingly, consumers are tired of it. Coupled with DRM technologies (which the record labels falsely believe to be the end-all of their problems), the situation really isn't going to get any better.
I saw this video clip of a documentary and I think it illustrates my point. Take anyone with the right face, the right hair, and even if they have no talent whatsoever, just with a little tweaking and marketing, you can turn them into an overnight success. Quite sad really, because the people with the real talent who don't have the perfect appearance to fit into this cookie-cutter formula will never be heard and will never get the recognition that they deserve.
So we end up listening to junk food music. It can fill you up, but doesn't give you any real nourishment, and that's something I truly miss.
