Revolutionary Road<\/a>."<\/p>\nI know, I know, they made a movie out of it.\u00c2\u00a0 But I didn’t see it.\u00c2\u00a0 I just don’t get Leonardo DiCaprio as an adult and Kate Winslet, although a phenomenal actress, doesn’t resonate in the role of a fucked-up Connecticut housewife.<\/p>\n
I downloaded the sample chapter because of something I read in the Sunday "New York Times" Book Review.\u00c2\u00a0 I never bothered to more than skim it previously, but now I’m an avid reader.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m looking for fulfillment.<\/p>\n
And that’s what I got with "Revolutionary Road".\u00c2\u00a0 Do we need meaningful work?\u00c2\u00a0 Do our lives run on rails of their own, and we’re just passengers?\u00c2\u00a0 Exquisitely written with a phenomenal, unforeseen by me ending, "Revolutionary Road" creeped me out.\u00c2\u00a0 There were parts that were just too close to home.\u00c2\u00a0 I immediately started a new book to shake the willies.<\/p>\n
And "This Is Where I Leave You" begins almost too close for comfort too.\u00c2\u00a0 It revolves around a Jewish family that’d rather be ironic, make jokes than be sincere.\u00c2\u00a0 My mother has never sent a sincere card in her life.\u00c2\u00a0 Nor do I.\u00c2\u00a0 We laugh at those weepy cards in the drugstore.\u00c2\u00a0 Could the laugh be on us?<\/p>\n
Then again, I was laughing out loud when the protagonist found his wife in bed with his boss on her birthday, and ended up shoving her beloved chocolate-strawberry cheesecake, with 34 lit candles, up his ass while they were doing it.<\/p>\n
You can depict this stuff in movies, even on TV shows, but it’s just not the same.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not as intimate.<\/p>\n
In other words, I’ve become addicted to books.<\/p>\n
I used to buy a hard cover a year.\u00c2\u00a0 I had to be truly convinced it was great.\u00c2\u00a0 Now I’m downloading sample chapters constantly, and I’m angry that I don’t have a complete other life, so I can read full time.<\/p>\n
And I found out I’m not alone.<\/p>\n
According to Amazon, in today’s "New York Times", Kindle owners now purchase 3.1 times more books than they did before they owned the e-reader.\u00c2\u00a0 This is up from 2.7 in December.\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, Kindle owners are reading a fuck of a lot of books.<\/p>\n
Are people listening to a fuck of a lot more music?<\/p>\n
Some are.\u00c2\u00a0 Those who are unafraid of the RIAA, and are using BitTorrent and RapidShare to steal what they want.\u00c2\u00a0 But most people are buying less music.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what the statistics tell us.\u00c2\u00a0 They want the track, not the album.\u00c2\u00a0 And who’d want the album?\u00c2\u00a0 Of these faux artists with records made by committee?<\/p>\n
Have you been checking out the statistics on Pandora?\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got 35 million listeners and they’re getting 65,000 sign-ups a day and the service sucks.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, it’s not terrible, it’s just not what most people want.\u00c2\u00a0 Most people want to be able to pick and choose amongst everything. They want to be able to sample what they hear about, what they read about, immediately.<\/p>\n
You can do it on your desktop.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s cumbersome.\u00c2\u00a0 Going from YouTube to MySpace Music to the band’s site to the aforementioned BitTorrent and RapidShare.\u00c2\u00a0 But there’s not one satisfying place that’s got everything.<\/p>\n
Rhapsody’s pretty good.\u00c2\u00a0 Napster too.\u00c2\u00a0 But their uptake is slim.<\/p>\n
Yesterday I downloaded the Spotify app to my iPod Touch.\u00c2\u00a0 Utterlyfuckingamazing.\u00c2\u00a0 The Rhapsody app is just about as good (except for the inability to download tracks for out of wireless range play).\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to pay for both.\u00c2\u00a0 But Rhapsody uptake is slim and Spotify is not available in America.\u00c2\u00a0 But people would pay for Spotify if they could just experience it.\u00c2\u00a0 But they can’t, because one major label doesn’t want it to be free on desktops in America.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the people running that company are as out of touch with reality as book publishers.<\/p>\n
What we want is more people listening to more music.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, we want them to pay for it.\u00c2\u00a0 But the best way to get people to purchase Spotify Premium is to let them experience the free desktop app.\u00c2\u00a0 And why shouldn’t labels be in favor of this, especially now that all deals are 360?\u00c2\u00a0 Since they share in touring revenue?<\/p>\n
The music business has got it all backward.\u00c2\u00a0 Once buying a Kindle, I’m eager to buy books.\u00c2\u00a0 Once buying a smartphone, people will pay for excellent music services like Spotify.<\/p>\n
The iPhone minions are a cult.\u00c2\u00a0 Extremely large, but they walk around tapping their screens in superiority.\u00c2\u00a0 Like people used to talk about bands.\u00c2\u00a0 But now, no new act reaches critical mass.\u00c2\u00a0 Because either they suck or most people don’t know about them or both.<\/p>\n
I’m dying to read Stieg Larsson’s new book.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m backed up on my Kindle.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m passionate.\u00c2\u00a0 The same way we want people to be passionate about music.<\/p>\n
In a world where there can be instant availability of all music, the major labels want to sell CDs.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re afraid to piss off Wal-Mart, and they’re sacrificing their audience to other forms of media.\u00c2\u00a0 The transition to digital distribution is wrenching.\u00c2\u00a0 But you’ve got to see the opportunities. Believe me, if Spotify launched its free version in America, there’d be instant hysteria.\u00c2\u00a0 Akin to the early days of Napster.<\/p>\n
Don’t think Spotify doesn’t pay for the music.\u00c2\u00a0 It does.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just banking on building a bigger business, willing to lose money now in order to make tons tomorrow.\u00c2\u00a0 The music business is unwilling to risk, labels and publishers are desperately trying to keep their old creaky business model functioning.\u00c2\u00a0 This is a recipe for death.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re on the cusp of a golden age of music.\u00c2\u00a0 The only people standing in the way are us.<\/p>\n
\nE-Book Fans Keep Format in Spotlight<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Do you still repress your farts? Go on a first date and farting is taboo.\u00c2\u00a0 Live with someone for a few years, and you’re ripping them on a regular basis. Or how about sex?\u00c2\u00a0 Ever postpone it because there’s something really good on TV? Can’t say I’ve ever discussed these topics with a buddy, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business","category-technology","category-the-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-BC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2332"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2334,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332\/revisions\/2334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}