I’m not sure the problem is the rip rate…

I just set up these new computer speakers, you can check them out at:

AUX OUT

I’ve been using the same $150 Cambridge SoundWorks system since the heyday of Napster, back in 2000, and this guy offered this $1000 system up.

The very first thing I noticed upon connection was how shitty MP3s sounded.

But then, I inserted a brand new CD and it sounded even worse than the 128 kbps rips I’d downloaded of classic tracks.

The new music was all compressed, all tinny, essentially unlistenable.  Whereas the classics, in comparison, were positively warm.

One of my favorite tracks of all time, in my iTunes Top Fifty most played, is Stories’ "Love Is In Motion".  Which someone sent me back in 2004, after I futilely looked for it online for five years, both illegally and legally.

I didn’t buy Stories’ "About Us" because of "Brother Louie", hell, I was stunned when that track ultimately hit, but because the band contained Michael Brown…you’ve always got to give a chance to the dude who wrote "Walk Away Renee" and "Pretty Ballerina".

Shortly after buying "About Us", I drove cross-country.  With twenty six cassette tapes.  One of them contained this Stories album.  I can sing every lick.  And two of the songs are personal favorites, the aforementioned "Love Is In Motion" and "What Comes After".

The rips I’m listening to are 160 kbps, but stunningly, they sound better than seemingly all of the new music.  Which is killed in mastering, if not the recording process.

Funny if you think about it, they used to have to EQ with the lathe in mind, LPs couldn’t contain all of the music.  And then we got the CD, and you didn’t have to artificially roll off the sound, you could put more than forty minutes of music on a disc, and now, twenty five years later, CDs sound completely like shit.

Oh, the digital standard we have is crap.  But what we’re doing with it is even worse.

Now some new acoustic music sounded good on these speakers.  But James McMurtry cut the acoustic version of "We Can’t Make It Here" at home, in a breeze, it was not squashed for radio, not homogenized for public consumption.  This take of "We Can’t Make It Here" is the best thing I’ve heard since it came out, as good a protest song as anything cut in the sixties, but do I love it so much because of the way it sounds?  On these speakers, it sounds like James is in the speakers, sitting right behind my computer monitor.

The Eagles’ "My Man" doesn’t quite sound as delicious, but there’s a richness in the bottom, a depth of field that was absent from the new CD I just played.

Or how about Gordon Lightfoot’s "Song For A Winter’s Night".  Not quite as good as the McMurtry number, still, it penetrates.

Or a true winner…  Stephen Stills’ "Do For The Others".  I heard this on my iPod the other night in the mountains, and it stopped me in my tracks.  I had to play it again, to see if the song was really that meaningful.  And I realized, it wasn’t the lyrics so much as the sound.  On these speakers, I’m brought right back to my freshman year at Middlebury.

New music doesn’t have to sound shitty.

But if there’s any chance it’s going to be played on the radio, it probably does.  The loudness wars apply.  That rich experience of sitting in front of the stereo, the music being enough, that’s gone.  No wonder people listen to this crap in the background, if it’s foreground, your ears bleed, you want to take it off.

So it’s not only rip rates.  Music when done right is warm, it penetrates.  Unfortunately, too much of what’s purveyed today has the feel of broken glass.  It’s edgy and sharp, it cuts you.

I didn’t care that Michael Brown left Stories when it had its hit.  I didn’t care that I’d purchased "About Us" as a cut-out and it became almost immediately unavailable after "Brother Louie" had its run.  I was such a big fan that I purchased the lead singer’s solo album.  That’s what came after.

What comes after now is no loyalty to the act.  If the business doesn’t respect the music, why should the fans?  Treat music like shit, and that’s how people will perceive it.  Sure, first it’s about the song, but recording, transfer, those make a difference.

This is a fucked up business.  There’s too much music.  Most of which is shitty.  And that which is good is almost impossible to locate.  It makes one hard to be a believer.  It’s probably impossible for today’s youth to know that music was once the number one art form, that it drove the culture.  But for one who’s been there, when you listen to the old music, lovingly restored, your life works.  Every bit as much as it did back in 1969.

Forty years have gone by, and we may be able to carry our collections around with us, but they sound worse than ever before.  Tweeter shuts stores all over the country and a kid thinks a stereo is a computer.

Then again, I’ve got a 500 gig hard drive.  I can own CD quality digital music.  Hard drives in iPods are constantly increasing in size, and getting cheaper.  Music doesn’t have to sound like shit.  But it does.

From: Jon Cole
Subject: Street Teams

I signed up for the Atlantic Records street team a couple of years ago when the Format were shuffled over from Elektra because that’s what you do when you’re a kid who loves a band. I didn’t realize street teaming was about whoring yourself out to get a low-level job in the industry so that you can whore yourself out more & look like an ass promoting music that someone else thinks is good. It didn’t take long to realize I didn’t want much to do with this method of marketing. Furthermore the Format never received the first bit of promotion & were finally dropped from the label in late ’05. (And since they’ve done almost everything right… they self-released their next record, Dog Problems, through Nettwerk & have steered one of the most successful grass roots marketing campaigns I’ve ever seen, all the while most if not all of their dignity.)

I never removed myself from the street team because the e-mails had a certain car crash quality. Like the one I just got regarding the promotion of the forthcoming Rush album.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the band…they’re kind of a big deal!!! Definitely ask your parents! They are going on a 45-city tour and hitting a lot of major markets to help promote their new album "Snakes & Arrows" set for a May 1st release, which is their first studio album of new material in 5 YEARS!!!! So this a huge!

Someone’s either too excited to proofread their e-mail (Vapor Trails was a smash hit, after all…) or they just don’t care. Or they’re trying to type like a 13 year old girl. Or some bizarre combination of the three.

Desperate times call for desperate measures? Or is this the kind of thinking that sank the ship to begin with?

My favorite part…

 …this is definitely a great band to have on your resume and under your belt!

Maybe if you want a job for some AAA radio station in Alabama… I, personally, would ask you why in the world you would waste your time doing "lifestyle marketing" for a band like Rush. I can’t imagine anyone who will be running things by the time these kids get their foot in the door will give two hoots about this marketing campaign.

Maybe I’m wrong… maybe it will catch on. But God, I hope not.

DRM might be the story in the mainstream press, but what sticks in my craw is the hit to Steve Jobs’ credibility.

What we hate about politicians is fiscal interests, i.e. donors, hold sway over elected officials’ opinions.  There is no Mr. Smith in Washington, speaking from the heart, always doing the right thing.  Today we learn there’s no Mr. Smith in Cupertino either, in case we were wondering.

Steve Jobs has got a problem.  European nations are circling the wagons, they want Apple to license FairPlay DRM.  Like there’s a chance in hell of that happening.

Back when the major labels still believed in CDs, when online sales were tiny, Apple might pull their store from any country causing a ruckus.  But now, the stakes are too high.  We’re fighting for the future here.  Who’s going to distribute music online when the CD is dead.

Well you might say that if DRM is removed, you can buy the tracks ANYWHERE!  But then you’ve got to import them into your iTunes library.  Believe me, I’m on the phone with the computer-illiterate, this is a baffling enterprise to so many.  Especially those too dumb to steal the tracks, those who are utilizing the iTunes Store to begin with.

You see Apple has got a seamless solution, based on not only the iPod, but the iTunes software.  To break that monopoly would be like…breaking the Windows monopoly.  But you can only do this if you’ve got a store, the labels want stores.  And if your store has to close…

No, it has to stay open.  Therefore, Steve Jobs makes a deal for variable pricing with EMI, breaking his FOUR YEAR STANCE!!

That was the beauty of the iTunes Store, one price for everything, no confusion.  Didn’t Mr. Jobs warn the labels not to confuse the customer by having variable prices?  All well and good when European nations aren’t breathing down your neck, but when they are…you do what’s expedient.  If the DRM comes off as part of the bargain, hell, you’ve got that seamless software solution and less than three percent of the songs on iPods are purchased at the iTunes Store, and you’re really selling iPods, right?

But what about that DRM?

I refer you to this article from the BBC

EMI takes locks off music tracks

"Mr. Jobs said the move to remove DRM on music was not a precursor to a similar step in the video market.

‘The music and video markets are not parallel. The video industry does not deliver 90% of its content DRM-free.’"

Huh?  So DRM is fine as long as you presently don’t deliver all your content DRM free?  What if the industry suddenly stopped producing CDs, would DRM then be okay for music?

And isn’t it funny that Mr. Jobs is the largest stockholder in Disney, which does have a successful recording operation, finally, but makes most of its money from films and associated visual programming/licensing.  Mr. Jobs owns Pixar, which he sells to Disney, so suddenly films are different from music?  That’s illogical.  And, isn’t it interesting that so few movie studios have signed up with the iTunes Store…  If Mr. Jobs says DRM sucks for all intellectual property, then his business, which is not only the iTunes Store, but the hardware Apple TV, goes in the shitter.

And why didn’t Mr. Jobs complain about the bit rate before?  Didn’t he extol the sound quality of 128 AACs?  Isn’t this like saying Hyundais are great, all the car you’ll ever need, but then driving a Mercedes and saying that this is what you really want?

Oh, buyers have the option, they can buy shit.

So, what I’m hearing is there should be two levels of quality for films.  The 35mm version and the 16mm version, with different prices for attendance at theatres exhibiting each.  Sure, they’ve come out with hi-def DVDs, but that’s a disaster area, because the original DVD is GOOD ENOUGH!  Is the 128 AAC good enough?  Especially if you’re listening to it on the shitty headphones provided by Apple with the iPod?  I’d say so.

So where do we lie, what’s the bottom line.

Mr. Jobs just added a whole bunch of confusion.  He just contradicted tenets he espoused for years.  And in case you think the legendary reality distortion field is not in play, here’s another quote from that BBC article:

"He denied that the 99p cost for tracks without DRM constituted a price increase.

‘We are adding another product, priced higher, with more features, higher sound quality and hassle free interoperability.

‘It’s not a price increase.’"

So you’re giving me less than I can get with the CD, but somehow I should be thrilled?  Sounds like used car salesman speak, doesn’t it?

Is it that when you wade into Hollywood waters you inherently lose your credibility?  Isn’t this what we hate about today’s musical artists, that they’re now doing what’s expedient as opposed to what they feel in their hearts?  Isn’t this the real problem with music sales, not piracy, but the low overall quality?

Eric Nicoli used to sell biscuits.  He’s just trying to turn water into wine.  He’s a businessman.  We were under the illusion that Steve Jobs was more than that, not a usual suspect.  Today we learned he’s just another self-interested prick doing what’s expedient.

Shit, if he could get the labels to keep prices at a standard ninety nine cents for four years, couldn’t he fight EMI on this price increase?

No, because he was worried about European governments, not DRM.  They were closing in on him, time was of the essence.  That’s the story here.

Why the fuck should they cost more?

One small step for mankind, and one half-step back.  It would be like Neil Armstrong getting to the moon and not getting out.  I mean if you’re going to go all that way…

This is the kind of bullshit pussyfooting that got the labels into hot water to begin with.  If anything, tracks should cost LESS!

Oh, if you buy the complete album, you get the old price.  But who the fuck wants a complete album of dreck by lame acts like the Good, the Bad & the Ugly that played this press conference?

You want to sell more tracks at the iTunes Store?  Make them a quarter.  Or fifteen cents or a dime.  Then watch sales go through the roof.

Do you see cell phone prices rising?  Do you see T-Mobile canceling family plans or making you include every last living relative to get them?

You don’t make half steps.  You go all the way, or not at all.  If you’re not willing to bet the company, then you’re not willing to win.

Take the case of Compaq.  State of the art computers, using the highest quality many times tested parts, for a high price.  Good plan for a while.  But then Dell sold hardly tested parts in machines at a low price.  So did Compaq lower their prices A LITTLE?  No, they changed their business plan, and sold what Dell did at similar prices.  And the company ultimately merged with HP to survive.  And HP was doing badly against Dell until computers became commodity items and people preferred to buy them at their local retailer rather than call Dell and wait for a shipment.  In other words, business conditions change, and you have to adjust.

This is not a new movie.  It started unspooling in 1999.  People can download music from the Internet.  And then they started owning hand-held players en masse.  Where’s the mystery?  CD sales have dropped since the turn of the decade.  Now they’re in free-fall and you RAISE THE PRICE???  Shit, if you’re gonna buy the whole album you might as well purchase the CD, you can rip it at ANY BIT RATE YOU WANT, and there’s NO copy protection!

Unbelievable bullshit.  EMI deserves to go out of business.  As for its lame competitors, they’re so paralyzed that they won’t even make a move.  Edgar Bronfman, Jr. wants higher prices WITH the DRM.  And Sony BMG is just trying to stay afloat, with an internal war aflame, with the Sony half fighting for its life.  And Universal is so arrogant, it somehow believes since it’s got the largest market share with the biggest selling acts, it’s somehow immune.  RIDICULOUS!

Start with the publishers.  They’ve got to go to a percentage rate.

Go to the deals.  Give the artists a fair shake, or soon none except for the most vapid no-talents will sign with major labels.

Then rejigger the economics so you can sell tracks at a cheap price.

Or, wake up to the future and realize more people want more music at a cheaper price and sell it to them this way.  In quantity.  Probably as licensed P2P.  But not track by track, even album by album, this is even LESS than the labels had before.

Record labels?  Your business model has changed forever.  Why don’t you wake up and acknowledge this.  If you don’t give the people what they want at what THEY feel is a fair price, they’re just gonna continue to steal.  And there’s nothing you can do about it.

Like the iTunes Store is working.  When Steve Jobs HIMSELF says that less than three percent of songs on iPods are purchased at the iTunes Store.  I would have at least said this was a step in the right direction if the price had stayed the same.  But really, this is no different from these lame-ass labels adding a track or two to a CD a fan already bought to entice some casual buyer to purchase it months down the line.  The labels have fucked their customers for years, and they’re now paying the price.  Half-measures like this will not solve their problems.