MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Aug 28, 08 - 08:21 am Comment from: JadisOne

Vote with your wallets by not purchasing and I guarantee that they'll reverse their thinking.

But it sounds to me that these people are lazy. They are not working to adapt their thinking and way of doing things to attract and keep their customers without offending them while being profitable all at the same time.

Time for the Artists to contract with the iTunes store directly, so they can keep a larger share of the pie.

Maybe they will still be able to afford Bentleys if they are able to produce a sufficient number of hit songs. Too bad the executives in the Label companies will be able to buy fewer Bentleys.

Yeah, this is all just BS. The argument that 'some artists see their albums as one piece of work, and don't want them dismantled' is a joke. The fact that I can go to iTunes and buy individual songs from The Wall and Tommy, two of the greatest concept albums in history, ends all discussion.

Disagree slightly with the idea that the album is dead.

Also, CDs killed the album much more than iTunes did. A typical LP was usually 40 mins long at most. Now with CDs that can have up to 70 mins of music, consumers demanded more tracks on each CD. Thus came filler to occupy CD space; many tracks which would have never made it on an LP.

If 'artists' would make better songs, then they wouldn't have to bundle 'the good stuff' with the filler.

Making their 'art' unavailable to consumers will only encourage theft.

Tell the label execs to get bent.

The record companies are:

"Snapping DEFEAT, from the jaws of VICTORY"

If I were an author and wrote a novel, I wouldn't want somebody purchasing individual chapters of my book, as it wouldn't represent the work I crafted as a whole, the way it was intended to be read.

The same goes for musical artists. If I created a concept album such as Pink Floyd's "The Wall" or Queensryche's "Operation Mindcrime" that was meant to be listened to as one piece of work, I should have the right to sell it as one artistic work, and consumers should have a right to vote with their wallets by not purchasing it. It's not greed if you simply want your work to be represented the way you intended it to be.

This is a right artists should have and we as consumers don't have to pay for a full album if we don't want to. I don't see why this rankles people so much. If you don't want the whole thing, don't buy it.

Aug 28, 08 - 08:34 am Comment from: MaLvado

I just "acquired" 'All Summer Long' and 'Shine'!

This should help offset those bundled purchases...

Whilst I might agree that albums such as Pink Floyd's, or even earlier those by (say) King Crimson or even Joni Mitchell or Carole King (Tapestry?), these were albums worth buying as an album.

Today as MDN says, most *albums* are little more than a couple of decent tracks and the rest are fillers. Once 'artists' start producing *real* albums again, then people will buy them. Until them they'll either go to the torrent sites or keep their wallets closed.

When you go to an art gallery: do you buy one picture, or the whole collection?

When you go to the cinema, do you have to watch every James Bond film or just one?

When you go to the bookshop, do you have to buy all three of Ludlum's Bourne Trilogy or the one you want?

Seems to me the GREED of the labels knows no bounds.

That said, I'd only buy The Who's "Tommy" as an album...! But that's MY CHOICE!

If I can't buy it on iTunes, I'll download it for free from Utorrent. I won't albums just because the cartel wants me to. And I won't buy from crapsody - ever. Puffy Rob Glaser will have to get his Mallomar money from someone else, because he won't get one single farthing from me. (A farthing was a British coin with the value of one quarter of a penny. It was legal tender from the 13th. century until December 31st. 1960. I use the expression when I want to add just a little more contempt than I normally would. Like when talking about the Puffster and his company, Really Bad Networks.)

Aug 28, 08 - 08:52 am Comment from: hagar57

Kid Rock? Country rock? Come on, the shit kicker crowd isn't likely to shop online, anyway.

If the individual songs on an album where really part of an overall concept, consumers would buy each individual song anyway. The fact that only one or two songs from your 'concept album' are selling simply shows your failure as an artist to create an entire coherent collection. Forcing people to buy your filler material is just a rip off. Learn your craft better, songwriters.

I think everyone should 'acquire' Kid Rock's songs from alternative sources. Didn't he explicitly advocate stealing stuff? I wonder how mad he would be if someone broke into his home and stole his stuff?

Aug 28, 08 - 08:52 am Comment from: The Dude

MDN Take... one of the best yet... "BeerTorrent" great! Love it!

The Dude abides.

Aug 28, 08 - 08:55 am Comment from: Max

I'm old. Let's go back in history to the early 1950's The 78 RPMs were dying and being replaced by 45s which filled the juke boxes all over America. One song at a time, just like the 78s. There were no albums. Along came the 33 RPM hi-fi album. It would hold a half hour on a side. When stereo came along in the early 60s, only 33RPM could play it. Suddenly music in stereo had to be on a 33. That meant an hour of music. There was no single format for stereo. The albums suddenly became the way good music was sold, not because albums were better, but because the disk held a half hour of music on a side and you had to fill it up. Hence, the album. The album format was there because of the 33 RPM stereo technology, not because of the demand for music in album format. The CD just duplicated the 33 RPM technology. There was never an artistic reason for albums. It was a technical reason. (And, there is no longer an artistic reason for them. )

Aug 28, 08 - 08:56 am Comment from: Mr. Reeee

MDN: the music ratio is more like 10-1 as far as pop goes. I use pop in the widest sense possible, short for popular. It's a generic term, much like the majority of music. Rock, Rap and Country are all pop.

The longer times of CDs has only encouraged more crappy filler, not more, better music.

@Chester Cheetah who wrote: "I don't see why this rankles people so much. If you don't want the whole thing, don't buy it."

Wakey wakey sleepy cheetah! The article is about labels REMOVING your choice to buy tracks and force you to buy albums...

Aug 28, 08 - 08:57 am Comment from: Think

So if the album as a whole is "Art", and we should buy it and listen to it that way....

why are singles released to radio to play for a new album?

The artist should demand that the whole album be played in order on the radio.

Artists have every right to make their "work" as long as possible. I'm fine with that. But consumers have every right to ignore such "works of art." Most pop albums are definitely not analogous to a novel. More like a collection of random short stories.

Plus, with today's short attention spans, any artist that thinks a 60 minute magnum opus is the quickest way to commercial success is dreaming—no matter how good they are.

The media empires have encourages our collective ADD for decades, and now they have to live with it.

If 10% of folk on a Mac site like MDN threaten to go torrent, on a Windows site it would be 90%+.

That should make the labels sit up and wonder....

Artists have every right to make their "work" as long as possible. I'm fine with that. But consumers have every right to ignore such "works of art." Most pop albums are definitely not analogous to a novel. More like a collection of random short stories.

Plus, with today's short attention spans, any artist that thinks a 60 minute magnum opus is the quickest way to commercial success is dreaming—no matter how good they are.

The media empires have encouraged our collective ADD for decades, and now they have to live with it.

@Chester Cheetah "If I were an author and wrote a novel, I wouldn't want somebody purchasing individual chapters of my book, as it wouldn't represent the work I crafted as a whole"

very few albums are a cohesive work. The albums you mentioned are some of the few that are actually played in their entireity on the radio (a medium that typically ignores the concept of an album)

Sorry about the Redundant Ministry of Redundancy

Hail torrents!

Artists cannot be choosers.

Actually, all they have to do is make their individual songs long enough (is it 7 minutes?) to be listed as Album only.

In Kid Rock's case I'm sure he realized he wouldn't make much money no matter how many of his new single he might sell via itunes. Because the song is a mashup of Warren Zevon and Skynyrd tunes he likely owes them a hefty percentage of royalties per sale.

At the same time, being of the same generation as "Kid", I am sure he still believes in the album format. Long live the LP!

But MDN makes valid points none the less.

The Other Mark said: "Also, CDs killed the album much more than iTunes did. A typical LP was usually 40 mins long at most. Now with CDs that can have up to 70 mins of music, consumers demanded more tracks on each CD. Thus came filler to occupy CD space; many tracks which would have never made it on an LP."


And why did consumers start demanding more tracks on cd's? Because, despite being cheapr than LP's to produce the music cartels started charging MORE for cd's....Evil bastards, the lot of em...Look up the lyrics to "dinosaurs will diee.." by NOFX

Aug 28, 08 - 09:17 am Comment from: JadisOne

@Max,

Thanks for that perspective. Obviously these "artists" don't know their history.

If you make quality, it will sell.......

Aug 28, 08 - 09:27 am Comment from: Mr. Reeee

Max...

Sure there's a reason for longer format disks. While pop music may struggle mightily (or not so much) to fill up a CD, there are other musical genres which WELCOME the "extra" length.

A couple of examples: Let's say Mahler's 6th symphony. On LP it "fit" on 4 sides, one movement per side, a sometimes 3 (2nd and 3d movements on the second disk). You'd have to get up, flip and clean each side between movements, breaking concentration. Now, depending on the conductor, the entire symphony can fit on one CD.

Then you have opera. A typical Verdi, Mozart, etc. opera, fit on 3 to 4 LPs. Those same operas now fit on 2 or 3 CDs, depending on the number of acts and the conductor. Thankfully the producers try to eliminate breaks in the middle of an act or scene and will add a disk to avoid that.

The extreme case would be Wagner's 4 opera cycle, Der Ring des Niebelungen. On LP, it "fit" on 18 to 20 (or more) LPs, depending on the conductor again. Even worse, there were arbitrary breaks in the middle of an act or scene at each album side, generally with a fade-out, which would absolutely kill the flow. With CDs the entire cycle typically fits on 14 or 15 CDs (I have 4 complete recordings). Generally an entire Act will fit on one disk... a break between acts is a good thing! Some Acts need 1 1/2 or 2 CDs and require breaks.

Then there are things like some of Miles Davis' long performance albums, which certainly demand the "extra" length.

Anyway, the length of CDs allow them to do it. And there IS a need for the length of CDs.

It's clear that the "one price fits all" model is wrong. If people will buy an album to get a single, it's clear they are willing to pay more for the single. It Steve Jobs allowed the prices to vary, this problem would go away and the albums would finally pass away.
How can a mediocre song from say the 60's be worth as much as the current #1 single. We too are "greedy", insisting that all songs be 99 cents.

Aug 28, 08 - 09:34 am Comment from: Max

Classical music is different. (I buy a lot of it.) Even when there were 78s they sold albums of Broadway shows, operas and classical music. The albums weighed 6 pounds and consisted of 6-8 platters which dropped from a spindle every 3-6 minutes. The album was a godsend for longer works. However, most albums are a series of short stories, not a novel like a symphony or opera or Broadway show. (Most of the "short stories" are terrible.)

Aug 28, 08 - 09:35 am Comment from: David Calado

There have been a few occasions where a good single came out and I went to iTunes to buy it. If the artist's music was either not available on iTunes, or if the single was not available (Kid Rock's is a recent example), I would simply download it via torrents. So, the music business missed a chance of me willing to pay for music, simply because it was not available on iTunes. I am willing to pay for music, if it is available, and if I am able to buy songs individually. If they refuse, then I refuse to pay for it and I just get it for free. I'm not sure if you could say my stance is moral, but it is the way I operate, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

so, let me get this straight...If I wanted to buy the new kid rock song (shutter), I would first got to itunes. Finding it not there I would do one of two things:
a) go get in the car, drive miles to the nearest big box retailer and fork down 18 bucks for a song that I will regret buying in a few years.
b) skip the whole delayed gratification thing, save some gas and torrent the thing.

That is assuming that Kid rocks fan base is old enough to drive, which is a dangerous assumption. If I am that eighth grader that just has to have that single for my iPod for the bus ride tomorrow then I know right away that it is way easier to find it free online then it is to bug mom and dad to drive me somewhere.

MDN MW: results - as in, the results don't look good for Bobby

"Sinnreich" by the way is a German word and means "full of meaning" -- one more reason to trust Mr. Sinnreich...

Aug 28, 08 - 09:44 am Comment from: DRM sucks

"Some artists see their albums as one piece of work, and don't want them dismantled,' Smith and Wingfield report."

That's fine. I understand that. iTunes offers some albums or at least significant portions thereof, as "album only".

"'In so many ways it's turned our business back into a singles business,' says Ken Levitan, Kid Rock's manager. Mr. Levitan says the rise of iTunes is far from being a boon to the industry; instead, he calls it 'part of the death knell of the music business.'"

I do not believe that the only viable incarnation of the music business is selling utilizing filler tracks to sell a hit or two or $10-17 (the price range of CDs). iTunes could be the death of this particular business model, but all the better for consumers and, in the end, artists.

Re: the other Mark,
"Also, CDs killed the album much more than iTunes did. A typical LP was usually 40 mins long at most. Now with CDs that can have up to 70 mins of music, consumers demanded more tracks on each CD. Thus came filler to occupy CD space; many tracks which would have never made it on an LP."

I agree that consumers did want more content on CDs. However, I believe filler was present on the 40 min LP longer before the advent of the CD. There is probably more now, but I cannot believe that before the CD every act was putting out 8 solid tracks per LP. In addition, at the time, many acts that believe the album has artistic merit thought that the artificial restriction of sides and time from vinyl were a problem that was alleviated by CDs. So, while I am sure even more filler made it on some CDs, they also allowed some albums to be fully realized (at least from the point of view of the aritst).

The problem I see with their thinking is that in our society today, I want instant gratification. If I want to listen to something, I want to listen to it now. I don't want to drive to a store to buy it, and then come home to listen to it, I want to hear it RIGHT NOW! The iTunes store provides a way for that to happen. Without that option, I go download it from somewhere less legal.

I can tell you with certainty that the economics of bundling are unabashedly focused on screwing the consumer.

Anytime you see a bundled product, know that you are overpaying.

'Real "artists" don't deny choice for profit.'

Real artists do whatever they feel the art needs. Don't confuse "product" with "art" and "artists" with "salesmen."

Aug 28, 08 - 09:53 am Comment from: luke255

I have my Lime Wire icon bouncing in my dock as i type

Aug 28, 08 - 09:54 am Comment from: Demon

The fix to the problem is an easy one.
Customer's need to just stop buying major label music. For every celebrity hacked act signed to a major label there are 4 indie artists out in the world making their music in a similar style as the major label sold-out used-up celebrity hack looking to pick your pocket for your cash. So, stop letting the music mafia cartels force feed you their celebrity hacks so called music. If you want real good honest music from hard working artists go indie.
One for my favorite places to find indie artist's music is [url=http://www.cdbaby.com]http://www.cdbaby.com[/url] Artists on CDBaby do make money from the sales of CDs, MP3 downloads and many of the artists list are also on iTunes+ (DRM Free too).
Use your power as a consumer and show the Music Nazis who is really in control is Major label artists stopped becoming spoiled, rich, famous & celebrities they start working for your money again instead of just feeling entitled to it.
Forcing you to buy their album full of dreck that they would have never recorded as an indie artist to get the one or two OK tracks has to stop. The Labels masters, the celebrity muppets, and all the other freeloaders that get a piece of the pie when you buy Music controlled by the freeloading cartels all think they are entitled to your money and if they get their way they will force everyone to pay even if you don't want to. The Corporate Music Entitlement attitude must be stopped and stopped now. Because, there is no industry in the world that has an entitlement to steal your money.

Support Indie Artists and Vote NO for people that support the Music Nazis forced entitlement efforts.

It's hard for me to fathom a person buying a single Kid Rock song, much less a full album. The adage, "A fool and his money are soon parted" has never been more true.

when was the last time you went to a concert and the "artist" played their album in exact order? The answer: NEVER! The end is near for the big music companies.

@Chester cheeter

That analogy does not work.

Reading seperate chapters in a novel is equated iff it is one song. That is, if I were an artist, I'd get annoyed if hiphop used my song and tore it apart and used it differently.

Each song in most albums are seperate to each other.

Unless it's say "Phantom of the opera" or a Chinese Opera, or a play. I don't see any connection between each song otherwise.

And that certainly isn't the case especially when I read the booklet that comes with the CD. Theres no hidden story, and no dedication to that artist's life.

It's just pure money making

The iTunes yanking is designed to go hand in hand with ISPs reporting torrent downloads to the recording rights associations. The UK has just passed a law forcing all ISPs to store all e-mails and site visits of their customers for at least a year and allow the Performing Right Association to search the databases. The ISPs then have to send a three strikes and you are banned notice to their customers. Looks like the record companies are getting the upper hand here.

If an "artist" wants to limit their exposure by limiting their sales to albums, who are we to say they shouldn't be allowed to do that. It's their music after all. We may not like it, but it's their choice. Take it, or leave it.

As Bob Dylan said, "Just because you like my music doesn't mean I owe you anything."

MDN, hypocrisy (or maybe illogic) is thy name.

If "bundling" is wrong for the music industry because it inhibits consumer choice, how is it any different for the computer industry?

After all, "the total experience" of an OS and hardware that "just works" together is also an artificial construct. Shouldn't consumers also have a choice in what OS and hardware (singles they want, or if they want an OS/hardware combination (album)?

The validity of the logic behind MDN's reasoning doesn't change just because the particular details (be they music industry or computer industry) are different. It can't be valid for one and not the other.

What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

BTW, I'm not advocating that Apple be forced by the courts to do what Psystar wants, I'm just playing devil's advocate here. I'm on Apple's side in that situation.

While I don't care at all for album only sales (I simply don't buy the music [albums] and, yes... that means I do without [certain singles]. I don't have a right to something simply because I want it.), that's the right of those selling the music. It isn't "wrong" and it isn't "evil". It may be "greedy," but is it any greedier than asking a boss for a raise? Who doesn't try to get the best deal or the most money, that he can for himself?

What's odd is that the music industry has not found a way to interlink music files distributed via hard media (CDs, DVDs, and tapes) in such a way as to prevent copying single files from those media. The rootkit was a different, and flawed, approach.

If these "artists" want to consider albums as one piece of art, then they ought to make them as one piece of music.

No interruptions, no pauses between songs. The album is one song, and it may be as long as 20, 30, 40 minutes, or an hour or more. Because what's the point of separated songs? It's unnecessary if the album is truly "one piece of art."

Aug 28, 08 - 10:35 am Comment from: DogGone

The reality is that the music cartels think they can make more money by restricting sales of singles in digital form to force people to buy albums.

The market will decide if this is a useful venture. Apple have forced the cartels to have fixed pricing otherwise the singles would cost 2 to 3 times more in digital form than they do now.

My suggestion is to sell albums at a reduced cost. Instead of 9.99 maybe 6.99. Then maybe people would take the risk on the album since they like the single.

I would really like to see a full breakdown of the revenue streams for the music industry. How significant is money from iTunes versus other etailers and also compared to physical sales?

Are the cartel trying to shoot the baby just because they do like losing some control over distribution?

FIRE UP THE TORRENTS THEN!!!


I'm cool to the artists and pay my buck a song, but if they think they can push 9 other crappy songs and force me to pay $10 instead they can...

....KISS MY FSCKING ASS!!!

By the way, don't vote for Obama because his VP "Bin Laden" is a stanch RIAA supporter of this rip-off albums.