“Long Way Down”
The SteelDrivers

I forgot it was Chris Stapleton’s previous band.

I downloaded three playlists to my phone. “Singer/Songwriter Highlights 2015,” I wanted to catch up on what I might have missed, “The A-List: Singer/Songwriter,” since it’d had been so rewarding at home, and then “The A-List Country,” because I like the faux rock. But then I didn’t want to hear any of them and ended up listening to the “Undisclosed” podcast. Are you catching this? Turns out “Serial” was professional broadcasters doing a cursory number, but once you get professional attorneys and investigators involved they uncover things that make all the difference, like everything that was supposed to happen on the key day didn’t, despite prosecutors introducing evidence to that fact. Bottom line, you need money to persevere, to win in America, to hire those who can get deep into the weeds and exonerate you, or flummox the opposition to the point where you skate.

But when I got home I was in the mood for music again. So I pulled up “The A-List: Americana,” now that I was in a wifi zone.

I heard a song off of Neil Young’s new “Monsanto” album. I loved that someone cherry-picked it for me, the full album was too daunting.

And I liked the Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard track, “It’s All Going To Pot,” which I’d read about and hadn’t listened to. Furthermore, the hype on Ry Cooder’s playing on Sam Outlaw’s LP was well-deserved, but Sam has got the voice of a songwriter, if you know what I mean.

But then I discovered the SteelDrivers.

Funny thing about music is you know it when you hear it, kind of like what Potter Stewart said about porn, being able to discern what was obscene when he saw it.

That’s the problem I’ve found with most of the Spotify playlists, too many tune-outs, I feel like I’m panning for gold in a stream that’s been panned out, where people have planted imitation gems in order to frustrate me. Whereas I find the hit to shit ratio on Apple Music’s curated playlists that much better.

“Long Way Down” sounds like an outtake from “O Brother.” Only in this case, it’s an original. At least I think it is, there are no credits on Apple Music. Stuff like this is never gonna make the radio, but it’s the kind of music you play at home that satisfies, that makes you want to see the band live to immerse yourself in the sound and enjoy.

It starts off slow and easy, as if the band is tuning up, or the guitarist is waiting for everybody else, it’s anything but the balls to the wall intro featured in the pop and rock we hear on the radio.

And then the rest of the band falls in and it starts to swing. You’re enraptured immediately, taken back to that cabin in the woods, where the squirrels traipse and AT&T provides no signal.

The verse has melody. The fiddle is not superfluous, but integral, it adds flavor.

But then comes the piece-de-resistance:

So far down that it ain’t got a bottom
Thought you had wings but I guess you ain’t got ’em
Fallen angel don’t look now…

I started jitterbugging in my seat. I couldn’t stop. Still do, every time I hear the track, and right now I’ve got it on endless repeat, it sounds as good as last night, which is the mark of true greatness.

The album was cut in Muscle Shoals. Actually, that’s the name of it, “The Muscle Shoals Recordings,” so I’m even further intrigued, I suspect authenticity.

So I just pulled up the LP. But I couldn’t get past the first track.

SEE IF YOU CAN!

The Muscle Shoals Recordings
The SteelDrivers

(This is the link Apple Music renders. Unfortunately, it takes you to the traditional iTunes page in your browser and when you click on “View In iTunes”…nothing happens. Well, I tried it again and iTunes did launch, but it’s synching my iPhone and iPad for the zillionth time today…I haven’t got time to wait to see if the track comes up in Apple Music.)

So…

View it here on YouTube: The SteelDrivers – Long Way Down (where it’s free and easy, literally…)

Or listen on Spotify: The SteelDrivers – Long Way Down

P.S. The video almost ruins the song, it eviscerates the magic. Maybe, when music moves to streaming services, video will retreat to the back seat, where it belongs.

 

E-MAIL OF THE DAY

Great feedback on Apple Music. Totally agree with so many of the UI issues. Thank you for letting us know where to find the playlists. You’re right – they are a highly valuable part of the service and I didn’t find them until your instructions. I can’t imagine why they buried them like that.

Here’s another one that’s bugging me – I can go to an artist and select “Follow.” What does THAT even do? Does it affect customization under “For You”? Is it the same as inflating the bubbles twice? Does it add content to Connect? I can’t tell.

Jarrod Kopp

We don’t get them too often in Southern California. And never during the summer.

I didn’t move to Los Angeles for the weather, but it’s a nice extra. It’s great to make plans and not have to worry if it’s going to rain. But today it did, rain that is. Just a few sprinkles. But in the decades I’ve lived here this has only happened twice before, a couple of years back and last Saturday, when Dark Sky said it was going to rain in 11 minutes.

It’s kind of like earthquakes in Oklahoma. They’re not supposed to happen. And we can argue whether today’s monsoon-like atmosphere in SoCal is induced by man, all I know is my mood has been completely different. I’ve got this great urge to go to the lake.

Oh, we have lakes in SoCal, but they’re gigantic and sometimes manmade. But that pond, in the midst of a forest… Those rarely exist.

On the east coast when the weather gets warm you sometimes go to the beach, I spent a lot of time in the sand by Long Island Sound. But sometimes you’d go inland to the lake. With its murky water sans salt. Go far enough north and the water gets clean, crystal clear in fact, but it doesn’t warm up until late in the season, when you’re already thinking about school, and now school starts in the middle of August.

But it didn’t back then.

The Beach Boys said that summer means new fun. And that’s what I liked about growing up. Every summer there was something different. I went to camp. I got older and took a canoe trip down the Allagash in Maine. I went to Philmont Scout Ranch. And then I got older, into college, and summer was for work. And I need a break, that’s what today’s weather has taught me, it has set my mind free, to a-wandering, thinking about mood and experiences from the past.

Ever drive around a New Hampshire lake on a day that threatens rain? When it could pour and you’d end up going to the movies or reading a book or playing board games? It could just as easily get sunny, and then you’d dive in and swim out to the raft. Or not.

That’s one thing I miss about the east coast, the interior. And the proximity. The interior mind…wherein it’s about personal development, burnishing your ability to express yourself, to have thoughts, to know that life is chiaroscuro and those who win all the time are lying, or missing out. And everything’s just a few hours away in New England. Whereas once you’ve been to Santa Barbara and San Diego you’ve exhausted exploration in SoCal. Oh, there’s Big Bear too, but the truth is the rest of the destinations are hours away.

And they’re all kind of the same. Broad desert landscapes. Whereas the east is about nooks and crannies, a different vista around every corner.

Then again, easterners feel they’re superior. They’ve had it harder. They know better. Whereas the west is the land of personal development, where you’re free to become who you want to be. And I like being the master of my own domain, not having to recite my SAT scores and alma mater on a regular basis. And then there are days like today, when I’ve just got the urge to drive inland, buy some chips, read the newspaper, be out of cell range, dig deep into an activity and feel both part of a continuum and not. Knowing that life is about feeling, and feeling so much.

This would be a rave, at least a qualified one, if it weren’t for those pesky interface issues. And if I have them, what about the punter Apple and the industry hope to get on board and pay?

The service is much more comprehensible in iTunes.

At nearly 4 PM, Apple pushed iTunes 12.2 to my Mac. The install was easy. Working the program…nearly impossible. What if they built a maze with goodies at every turn but you couldn’t figure out how to get out, never mind retrace your steps? That’s Apple Music. Although, it’s more comprehensible on the phone, once you get over the hurdle. Why are there so many hurdles?

You load iTunes and you’ve got no idea where to go, how the program works. You expect to see a button that says “Apple Music,” but you don’t. Rather you see the usual suspects plus “For You,” “New” and “Connect.” Also you have “Radio”… Was that there before? I can’t remember, I never listened to iTunes Radio, as a matter of fact, the only thing I used iTunes for was to synch my devices, my iPhone and iPad, when it came to music…I used Spotify and Deezer.

So where do I click? How do I get started?

Turns out “Radio” is just that. It’s easy to listen to Beats 1, it’s at the top of the page. I did some listening, not much, it’s gonna take some time to find out if Beats 1 changes the industry. What we want most is for Beats 1 to break acts/records. But with so many deejays and only one channel in an on demand universe where I never want to hear a tune-out… Beats 1 is passive. Even more passive than Pandora. Yet, people love Pandora. But Pandora, theoretically, plays music you want to hear, most people don’t want to hear what’s playing on Beats 1, that’s the nature of a singular radio station.

You click on “New” and…

You see a ton of albums. But is this the iTunes Store or can you play these for free? You gingerly click around and find you can listen. That’s cool.

Then you go to “For You.” And here you get recommendations based on what bubbles you picked and pricked. An inane idea that yields no fruit. I could explain further, but just try it, it’s nearly worthless.

But the playlists… They’re near genius.

But to get to the playlists… You’ve got to click on “New” and scroll down. I stumbled on them by accident and then I couldn’t get back. Frustrated me so much. Like I said, shouldn’t playlists be under “For You”?

And there are two types of playlists, “Apple Music Editors” and “Curators.” What’s the difference? Didn’t anybody at Apple ask this? Click around and you can see that “Curators” is outsiders, like “Rolling Stone” and “Pitchfork.” And there you’ve got the essence of Apple Music, once you know how to use it, it’s pretty good, but it’s less than intuitive and the learning curve is, if not steep, definitely uphill. (There’s one other playlist type, “Activities,” that’s too generic for me, my music means too much to me, I don’t do random.)

Clicking on “Apple Music Editors” you get to the heart of the matter, the genre playlists. (You cannot open multiple pages! Getting back to where you once belonged can be challenging!) You pick one and…

Let me mention right here, Apple Music looks much better than Spotify. Spotify sucks when it comes to advertising and distributing its message, and design too. This is the legacy of Steve Jobs, look counts. And Apple Music looks good. Not quite good enough to lick, but close.

So, once you’re in the genre area, picking, let’s say, “Singer/Songwriter,” you’re confronted with five rows. The first is the most important. It’s the playlists, the general ones, the hits and… You click on a playlist and…you discover new music. Really. Well done Apple. I already heard something I liked that I never heard before, “Forget You In LA,” by Poema, who I’d never heard of before, never mind played. And there was a track cherry-picked from Arlo Guthrie’s old “Washington County” album on another Singer/Songwriter playlist, so…it’s kinda thrilling. Assuming you have confidence in the curators.

Below the first row, of playlists, there’s a line “Albums You Need To Hear.” Of which there are five in every genre. This is great, it separates the wheat from the chaff, you can sample what you should.

And then there’s a line “In Rotation – Singer/Songwriter Radio.” I thought clicking on these albums would get you customized radio stations, but instead you get full albums you can stream on demand. So, why is it “Radio”? I’m not sure…maybe they play these songs on Beats 1, this is just evidence of the many frustrations on Apple Music, loose ends, that any editor could point out and could be fixed, but it appears no liberal arts major oversaw the overall program, to make it coherent.

And on the last line you’ve got “Intro To.” Where you’ve got playlists of significant acts. This is much more coherent and understandable than Spotify, and intriguing.

But if you quit iTunes and try to get back to the playlists… Good luck! Just remember, click on “New” and SCROLL DOWN!

And that’s the essence of the service, the playlists.

They do not coincide with radio. I checked out the “Electronic” area and…the tracks in the “A-List” (there’s an A-List for every genre) did not coincide with the chart, Diplo, the king of the summer, was nowhere to be found, never mind DJ Snake and…

So, what’s more important? Radio or Apple Music? Who’s got the chart that counts?

This is the essence of the issue. The iTunes sales chart drove sales, people would check out what was on top. Will Apple Music playlists drive consumption? Maybe. If enough people subscribe and use, what’s on the A-List will drive the culture. That’s a pretty big if, but not an insurmountable one.

All of this is much easier to use on the phone. But, just like in iTunes, you’ve got to get over the hurdle, you’ve got to figure out you’ve got to click on “New” at the bottom of the app to see the playlists, which, once again, you have to scroll down to encounter. Normally you’d click on “New” last, after “My Music” and “For You,” but that’s not how it works in Apple Musicland.

So, what we’ve got is a program with a steep learning curve that makes music consumption fun and rewarding, yet is harder to navigate and understand than Spotify. Once again, once you figure the program out, it’s best to use it on the desktop, that’s where you can SEE the playlists and understand everything.

And Apple Music looks better than Spotify.

And it’s got the Apple brand.

But do people want to pay?

Some will.

Most won’t.

P.S. There’s a setting in the app to make sure your subscription is canceled on 9/30 and you don’t get billed, it’s all over the web, here’s an example:

“How to turn off Apple Music’s auto-renewal before your free trial ends, Do it now so you don’t forget later”

And this is why Apple Music will not reach its goal of 100 million subscribers in 12 months. If people can figure out this trick in a matter of hours, they can figure out how to listen to music for free, especially when it’s there for the taking on YouTube, where the search works, as opposed to on Apple Music. That’s right, start searching, you’ll get into backwaters you cannot get out of, assuming you end up where you want to be to begin with.

P.P.S. Connect is a disaster, dead on arrival. There’s almost no content. It’s Ping without the hope. Yes, Ping was early enough in the social media arc that we were interested, now the acts don’t even seem interested. Connect should have been fully populated upon release, it’s not.

P.P.P.S. Every genre page has buttons on the top, “Featured,” “Playlists” and “Connect.” What’s the difference between “Featured” and “Playlists”? One of the many questions Apple didn’t ask itself before it foisted this design upon us.

P.P.P.P.S. We won’t know if Apple Music is a success for a very long time. Even if you’re interested, and I am, it’s going to take weeks to get into the nooks and crannies and find out if it’s a superior experience to what has come before, never mind worth paying for.

P.P.P.P.P.S. Functionality is hobbled. You’re gonna get the spinning gear. I’d say it’s release day blues, but isn’t the goal to have MORE people use the service?

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. There are heart and plus sign icons that don’t reveal their meaning when you hover over them and don’t seem to be reversible once you’ve clicked. Apple built its reputation on the seamless experience. Steve Jobs wanted as few buttons on the remote as possible, he was all about leaving stuff out, to avoid confusion. That ethos has left Cupertino.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. On the homepage, when you log in, there should be the five tracks you MUST hear. This is what the music business is looking for, a way to draw the confused in, expose them to music that titillates them and makes them fans. Instead, you’ve got to get into the weeds, and that’s too much for most people.

Botched launch. Terminal? Probably not, but we expect so much of Apple.

We had to listen to Jimmy and Drake testify, but no one focused on usability, no one told us how it actually worked, that would have been a better use of WWDC time, instead we got smoke and mirrors about a “revolutionary” product, how classic entertainment business.

Do I need new software?

I don’t think the average person would be aware of this, however, I am, I know you need a new iTunes and a new iOS. I decided to download both simultaneously, a big mistake.

There were no notices on my computer, nothing telling me about this great new product. So I went to Software Update, where I found 10.10.4 waiting for me, I figured Apple Music was baked in.

Now I’ve got a maxed-out iMac 5k and 200 down, and it took me the better part of fifteen minutes to install the update. And then it didn’t work.

I went to iTunes. Kept clicking, saw nothing.

Went to Safari, followed the prompts. Got back to iTunes, was told to upgrade but then the program said it was up to date. Downloaded the latest iteration and it still didn’t work.

Then I went to research… Google told me APPLE HADN’T PUSHED 12.2 TO CUSTOMERS YET! That’s right, on launch day, you can’t use it, at least not on your Mac or PC, until Apple deigns to send the software, all that hype for…nothing.

My iPhone gave me no notice of an update, I had to go to the Settings, to General and then search to see if they pushed new software.

But eventually my iPhone rebooted. Which took forever, and I’m running a 6. And I found Apple Music. It immediately wanted to charge me.

Hmm… I don’t like coughing up my credit card and neither does anyone else. And since Apple already has my credit card…I’m more fearful of cancelability, or forgetfulness. That’s right, you can’t cancel subscriptions in America, just call your cable company and try. Furthermore, gotchas abound. If I try to cancel a subscription one minute into the next month, they charge me for that, so I abhor making the commitment to subscribe whenever it requires financial information.

Now we know why Jimmy said he was gonna kill free. Through time-treasured American bait and switch techniques. The barrier to entry is supposed to be low, you’re supposed to charge AFTER! How many kids are gonna ask their parents to pay and get no in response? How many parents are gonna be PISSED when they find out they’ve been charged for something they thought was free, which will happen in October.

So I decide to log in with my Beats account, all the news says it’s gonna prompt me to convert to Apple Music. That didn’t happen.

But I hit the button on the mobile app and registered anyway… And what did I find… NONE OF THE INTUITIVE GRACE APPLE IS FAMOUS FOR! Kinda looked like the old iTunes Store, all I could see was what I paid for…

On the bottom I found radio, I clicked and heard what I did not want to. Looked for the OFF button. Hard to find. Eventually found a triangle near the bottom of the screen.

So there are five buttons at the bottom of the screen, and the first is “For You.” I click and I get the damn bubbles for Beats’s curation algorithm. Didn’t this fail once already? Apple does not do cutesy, but it does here.

So I’m waiting for the new iTunes, so I can listen more to Beats 1. I don’t want to use my iPhone while I’m working at my desk.

As for the vaunted playlists… Where are they, how do I find them? Do I have to click on the damn bubbles?

Now I’m not saying Apple Music is a failed product that will get no traction. But I am saying people have an unrealistic expectation of its functionality and ultimate impact.

First and foremost, you’ve got to let people know about it. I’ll argue Apple has not done the greatest job here, it’s equivalent to a soft launch, but with more than a modicum of publicity.

Second, USABILITY! What Apple built its rep on. How do I download, install and use the damn product? I’ve never been flummoxed to this extent before with an Apple offering. Even the Watch was easier. And they said they were gonna beat Spotify on interface…make me laugh.

Third, USABILITY! Once I’m in, how do I use it? All I keep hearing is about playlists, but where are they? How about one page with easy instructions, how about instructions in the app? I didn’t see them.

Apple Music will have an impact, it will gain customers. The brand will get people started, but only word of mouth will make it primary. The truth is many people don’t have subscription streaming services and a great proportion of them may not even be aware of them, or how they work. So, despite Spotify’s penetration, we’re not that far from the starting line.

But when you make it hard to install and want me to give my credit card up front…

You look like a sleazy American company, like a hated cable operation, and you make people reluctant.

This is no way to launch a revolution.

P.S. Yes, the first three months are free. But, right up front you commit to paying when that runs out, you link to your iTunes account, which has a credit card attached.

P.P.S. We do live in a mobile world, so desktop functionality is secondary. But those most prone to subscribing are the Luddites, and they start on the desktop machine.

P.P.P.S. Apple bought SoundJam to build iTunes and cleaned it up to be easier to use, as well as adding functionality. If you don’t think Apple Music looks just like Beats Music, you never used Beats Music. Except there’s more clutter and it’s less intuitive. Makes me think you should keep techies and music business people separate. As in Jimmy Iovine can hype, but he can’t code.

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