New Technology

[Guest Yahve]

FIU bookstore ( a fancy Barnes and Noble ) just put in a beta of a new section they plan on pimping out to the rest of the country.  NeoLibrary.  It's a fancy Ad center for pop culture.  All the hoopla aside, it allows you several cool new things: preview movies, listen to mp3's of CD's u want to buy, preview games, cell phones, etc.  

 

The controversy arises from a service they plan on implementing in August.  They will allow burning of select songs to a CD for your purchasing pleasure at the counter.  I assume the selection will include radio hit singles and maybe a few odd songs.

 

The problem ( as illustrated to me by Athena ) is that with the ability to purchase hit singles without buying that "bulky album" that comes along with them.  People will sidestep the traditional means by which artists promote their music.  People who if left without the option would buy the CD albums and have a chance at appreciating new music, now will allow their inner sheep to take over and just get the hit song they want, bypassing all of the artist's efforts in producing an elaborate and meaningful album in favour of the popular radio song.  

 

Hopefully Athena will stop by and tell her side of the story but my view is:

 

The people that want to learn about the music still can.  The albums are there for those who want to buy them.  If the sheep are routed off to mindless radioplay hell, then fuck them anyway.  Who cares about what mindless sheep think about music.  When it comes to musical appreciation, they are just drones anyway and don't count in the grand scheme of things.  when it comes to the allmighty dollar, I believe that the RIAA wouldn't have approved this venture at such a low cost ( estimated 10 dollars for these custom CDs ) if they thought that the market that would deviate from their own proprietary CD sales would leave them at a loss.  I trust their cutthroat layers and advertising reps to know more than I when it comes to leeching money off the public.

 

any thoughts?

[The NZA]

...i think people should be wary to so quickly call their fellow man "sheep", when yet another could easily say someone who "listens to music in the background, fuck the lyrics!" is quite sheepish...

I broght this up on your last topic here "The Music Industry", you should check back there.  I think many artists get locked into record deals & are forced to create many "filler songs" to keep their end of the deal, and that sucks - artists should go at their pace.  

While i dont think of m'self as one of Yahven's sheep, here's an example of how it might go: NAS finally gets some exposure these days with "One Mic" all over the radios, so in a future setting where all (purely hypothetical, mind you) songs can be listened to, picked & put onto a custom CD of your choice, I can go back to his archives & put the ones i like on my customized disc, payin a few dollars more to fill it up so it's not just that one single.  The only possible harms, as Yahven mentioned, might be:

1) Using Eminem as an example, many folks'd go buy "Without Me" as a single since its all over the place, and might miss out on "Sing for the Moment", one of his more insightful tracks that might not make the radio airwaves; no one wants an artists' deeper stuff ignored.

2) Without that very radio exposure to singles (and most Miami radio sucks for that anyway, i think - we loop stuff too much), perhaps even more up & comers would be lost in the sea of customized radio hits.

However, i think it might be interestin to see artists go at their own pace, not bein hounded by the slime at the RCAA, and there's ideas like "If you put this radio hit track on your disc, you get this song the artist did/likes for free" or somethin, some kinda promotion for exposure....like, up & comers can have their songs on a list of freebies to finish off your CD with or somethin, follow?

So, if it went like that, i think it'd be promising, but id like to hear other perspectives on such a situation.  In the meantime, i dont see any real harm in this system.

[Reverend Jax]

Yes, this could discourage people from buying albums, but if the album is worth listening to, then it's their loss. but this could also encourage artist to put more effort into pulling together more solid albums. The radio single serves the purpose of promoting the rest of the album. If people can buy the single without the album (which they could before, but they were too expensive for most people to bother), the function of the radio single is lost. Most of my favorite bands become my favorite bands (Rush, Queensryche, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Dream Theater, Live, the Beatles, the Who, Symphony X) by having released solid albums and not just great radio singles padded with filler. If this system truely takes off, those who release truely quality albums from start to finish will get the recognition of it through word of mouth and shall reap the spoils. Those who don't, shall have to evolve of die out by startign to record albums full of good songs.