iTunes .99 cents vs. $14 for a CD?

 More Artists Steer Clear of iTunes

Per this article.   Maybe the data isn’t there but it would have been interesting to compare this to the gold age of the 45s (whenever that was) - we didn’t have that many when I was a kid in the early 70’s but what about the 60’s? Come to think of it, I did have friends with reasonably large stacks - Quite frankly I could imagine that there were a lot more one hit wonders back then as we bought 45’s rather then albums.  I do remember some 2 to 3 song LP’s.  Maybe iTunes could go to a two song option with the bonus "flip side".  Anyway - I wonder what the empirical data shows for that scenario.  My point is, this isn’t that new of a model.  Maybe if all these single song downloads were not there these artists wouldn’t be selling anything (Big difference between .99 and $14 for a CD).  Maybe today’s artists simply cannot fill an album.  I was a fan of bands like Genesis, YES and Pink Floyd as a kid - so I "Had" to buy the album to get the full picture. However I never would have bought an album from Gary Wright even though I knew Dream Weaver by heart after making my "tape mix" from a friend or the radio.

Sean Kingston “Me Love” sample or just plain suck

YouTube - Sean Kingston "Me Love" - Music Video

Thanks Andy for pointing this out to me and messing with a memory.  Just kidding - you know sometimes a sample is a feeling - like I was just channel surfing and came across this chick-band Pussycat Dolls: Live in Manchester - had to stop: eye-candy.  I don’t see much original coming out of these girls either.  They are just plain singing other peoples stuff.  But at least they aren’t taking a tune and moving the words a bit. The "music memory" that caught my ear on that show was a pop song that has the sample from ELO’s Mid-evil Woman. I don’t know the song, its a sort of Rap.  

Tributes are good - remember how Run DMC revived one of my favorite bands - Aerosmith!  Explicit rebirth of a great old song. 

So I think its okay to sample - after all music is supposed to elicit a feeling, move you.  If these rappers pull a few bars from the original recording its makes you miss the next few bars and that will make you think, or feel.  Pulling a melody, chorus and changing the words a bit just pisses people off though as Kingston does here.  The Zeppelin song was so much better and the words made more sense anyway.  

Cover art for In Rainbows // journal // hicksdesign

Cover art for In Rainbows // journal // hicksdesignThis is a great page - I downloaded (and yes I paid for) Radiohead In Rainbows recently - lots of cool ideas here for cover art.  

Supertramp - today and yesterday

The kids love to torture each other - My “literal” Daniel cannot stand that song Cupid’s Chokehold by Gym Class Heros because they sample the Supertramp song - Breakfast In America and what is worse they blend two different parts of the song - putting the “badadadum” right after the “take a look at my girlfriend” - and it is a hoot to watch Maia torture him when I sing the original supertramp version and she simplyl floats in a “badadadum” right after that part.

got me thinking of the standard - we all worked hard to learn the lyrics to. It would work today just as easily…The Logical Song

Supertramp - The Logical Song Lyrics

When I was young
It seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees
Well they’d be singing so happily
Oh joyfully, oh playfully watching me
But then they sent me away
To teach me how to be sensible
Logical, oh responsible, practical
And they showed me a world
Where I could be so dependable
Oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical

There are times when all the world’s asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am

Now watch what you say
Or they’ll be calling you a radical
A liberal, oh fanatical, criminal
Oh won’t you sign up your name
We’d like to feel you’re
Acceptable, respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable

At night when all the world’s asleep
The questions run soo deep
For such a simple man
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am, who I am, who I am, who I am

Album Covers and contents

Remember those days when we had LP’s and Albums? My brother and I exchanged an email about this:

Neil Said: “…our kids will never know from records. I used to love looking at the art work and all the cool stuff. It’s official: We’re old.”

Yea - I already ranted about that - but he also really has a good point. That was a part of listening to albums. Sitting around in your family room or bedroom. Listening to the latest album from The Who, Styx, Bruce or KISS. It was like your birthday every time you scraped together enough to go get one. I remember getting bootleg albums of DEVO with my fellow fans early in their history - and the odd art work the producers put together was all part of it.

If you download iTunes (free) and use it to keep your library of music you know that they have added the “thumbing through your album collection” feature for one of the “views”. I think Steven Jobs (CEO Apple) is nostalgic that way. In fact, though, DVD’s will probably replace CD’s as some point in terms of music delivery because there is only room for music on them and a DVD allows for extra stuff - the stories, pictures, etc. And downloads are making them obsolete. Sometimes when you download a “full CD” from iTunes - usually 9.99 vs. .99 for the song you get a .pdf of information, art work, etc. Or even a video. I think everyone is hungry for that - meaning Baby Boomers and us “tweenies” that had that as kids. So that’s my prediction, blue-ray DVD’s with high fidelity (Hi Fi CD’s never became popular). It fits in well with our passive culture, sit around and let them tell us what to think. Wow us with special effects. Eventually though, with bandwith, it will also all be available on-line.

Referencing the Post “Why is this CD Giant?” 

Daddy, Why are the CD’s Giant?

We were working in the basement and I said, “Hay kids, lets listen to some of dad’s old music.”

I have a turntable in my office in the basement. Sophia innocently asked..”Why are the CD’s Giant?” Never seen a record album before. People like to look back at baby boomers and my grandparents - regarding teh stuff they never had. Like color TV or TV at all.  We remember when there were the first microwaves, personal computers, vcr’s, and cassette tapes. Yes - in the 4 years in college I went from a typewriter and learning COBOL on a Prime Mainframe to an Apple IIe where I learned BASIC and then an IBM PC where I learned WordStar. But Sophia didn’t even know what she was looking at.  The bigger kids had since They have seen DJ’s and my records before. She is 6, time flew by and I hadn’t introduced her to those old songs yet, well those old albums, we have DaveFM here that plays all my old songs (over and over and over).  Keep looking folks, it all changes fast.

Jewish Music - rock, rap, reggae

Matisyahu - A Reggae sound by a Hasidic Jew. My faith never sounded so cool.  Wait - what about Benny Goodman?  What about him?  What about the great divide that doesn’t have to be there. Soul is from G-d, we all have it in us, and it comes out in many ways.
JDub Records - find more Jewish Artists

Why Music?

How does music affect you?
Does it bring you to an emotion or is it only something to dance to? Do you listen or do you hear? Does your heart match the beat or does the melody pull it? Does both happen and do you find you have not choice but to sing and dance? Why is there music? Is it the beat of our heart, the firing of our nervous synapse, the pumping of our adrenele glands or the breathing of our lungs. Is it the desire to share a pulse with our mate or the memory of such an encounter? Music is often overlooked by our visual society. Filmmakers know it – a movie without a soundtrack is empty. But people don’t think about it when they live daily lives. Why the iPod? When so many were moving towards the ultimate personal device this thing only did music. Why did it work? Maybe it brought a little happy feeling to those who used it.

Because if you can add that pulse, that drive, that song to a picture. If you match a memory with the song’s sweet passion. If you can take the feeling from an experience and amplify it with the pulse of life you capture the heart and head together.

Grammy’s What is the difference between record of the year and song of the year?

Sometimes it is amazing how you can find what you want on the web. I was wondering this - and found it. Greenday won record of the year, U2 song of the year.

GuideLive.com
Two of the top awards – song and record of the year – are harder to decipher than the average VCR owner’s manual.

Mahna Mahna

I’ve brought this up before with friends. I remember this Muppets bit as a kid where the monsters did this song

Mahna Mahna
Beep Bee Beedebe
Mahna Mahna
Beep Bee Dee Beep

and no one remembers it. But CAKE did it on an album called “for the kids.”

Here’s to being right..