Re: Brian Eno about recorded music

[Art Simon <simart@gmail.com>]

I think there is a new paradigm here, it's more than just whether you
are getting the music delivered digitally or by a physical product.
The internet allows "narrowcasting." You can pick a genre (or in
Pandora's case, specific music features), and you can discover music
that you never would have found by browsing record bins or listening
to over the air radio. I've often wondered whether we'll someday
discuss music in the categories that Pandora uses. Apparently I like
"mixed major and minor modalities, funk roots, repetitive melodic
phrasing, rhythmic syncopation, funky rhythms, and an electric guitar
solo."

On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 9:08 PM, tyler newman <tyler@batterycage.com> 
wrote:
> hi-
>>
>> . But there is something special there that is lost on the I-Pod
>> generation. I concur.
>>
> i'm not too sure that i agree with a great deal of the sentiment 
>expressed
> here, re: the fetishism of owning plastic/vinyl discs.
>
> i'm not the ipod generation, nor am i old enough to actually consider 
>vinyl
> "the superior medium". i own a few thousand cd's, accumulated over the 
>past
> two decades more or less. i own zero vinyl records. i have owned four 
>ipods.
> i have not owned a cd player in a decade. my primary source for 
>listening to
> music is my computer and my ipod. i do not pirate music, ever.
>
> at the beginning of 2009, i decided to do an experiment, and switch all 
>my
> music purchases to digital only for the whole year. ok, i cheated a few
> times (if, and only if) a band i liked came through town; i'd probably 
>buy
> their cd if i liked their performance. that said, i will probably never
> purchase another cd / physical product. here's a short list:
>
> 1. the environmental cost is far too high. someday i'll be dead. and 
>where
> will all that plastic end up? all those bulky jewel cases and shiny 
>plastic
> coasters full of music that someone once cared about and now no one 
>does. i
> don't like the idea of leaving a giant plastic footprint on the world.
>
> 2. they are low touch, high occupancy items. i buy a cd, i rip it in 
>itunes,
> i shelve it. end of story. sure i might read the liner notes a time or 
>two.
> but by and large it is literally sitting there taking up space for the 
>next
> X number of years. eventually, we're back to point 1, above.
>
> 3. artwork, whatever. if i had a dollar for every cd i've bought with
> terrible artwork with no information inside, i could go on an itunes
> shopping spree. a nicely done PDF can be FAR better than a printed 
>booklet,
> if it's done with some creative vision.
>
> 4. record stores. sorry, but i really consider these a massive waste of
> time. don't get me wrong i used to get a lot of pleasure out of spending
> hours of my time and many many dollars at amoeba (here in SF, truly one 
>of
> the nations best record stores). BUT, more often than not, they wouldn't
> have exactly what i was looking for, so i'd end up blindly buying other
> stuff with mixed results. so that can be pretty frustrating. sure, i came
> upon some great finds, but NOTHING can compare with highly tuned
> recommendation algorithms, not even friends recommendations. while i'm 
>not
> too convinced by amazons recommender, i think emusic has a great one, 
>and of
> course netflix (yes, different medium, but same principle) is basically
> unrivalled. add to that the fact that i can literally be listening to the
> record in my home environment in a matter of seconds, that's very
> compelling.
>
> for me, digital is by far a superior music purchasing experience. i use
> itunes (rarely), amazon (occasionally), and emusic (like a crack 
>addiction).
>
> of course, as an artist, the move to digital has hurt my overall sales, 
>as
> more people use file transfer for music piracy. that's an undeniable 
>fact.
> BUT, it's helped me as well:
>
> 1. digital sales are 100% trackable. this means that the numbers 
>reported to
> soundscan are 100% accurate. no more guesswork as to how many onestops 
>out
> there don't subscribe to soundscan, meaning i have no idea what my actual
> sales numbers are. i have a perfectly good relationship with my label, 
>but
> nonetheless, i like seeing concrete data too.
>
> 2. no physical product means that there are no more physical product 
>returns
> affecting my sales. this is huge for me, as i got seriously screwed when
> tower records went out of business and returned over 2500 copies of my
> second album. i'm almost, but not quite, out of that hole (several years
> later).
>
> 3. streaming revenue is making me more money now than physical sales on 
>some
> of my records (the older ones in particular), which helps a lot. in a 
>way,
> it's the perfect union of the above two points...how many broadcast radio
> stations really report accurate info? computer data allows for all of 
>this
> to be 100% trackable, and helps my performing rights organization 
>actually
> collect money and pay me!
>
> i like the fact that eno is being so confrontational with his statement.
> artists are all too often throwing their hands in the air and bemoaning 
>the
> death of the music industry. i've done it myself! so the challenge is to
> come up with other ways of making it work.
>
> we're supposed to be creative people, right?
>
> - tyler / informatik
> - www.nymphomatik.com
> ===================
>
>



-- 
Art Simon
simart@gmail.com
myspace [dot] com/artsimon