Just the FLACs, Please.

2 bands I like are releasing new albums shortly:  Brooklyn's Yeasayer and Portland's Menomena.  This is awesome.  In fact, it's so awesome that I went off to go and pre-order both albums.  "It's 2012," I thought to myself, "surely each band will offer me a lossless audio download option for their new albums.  Won't that be nice?"

And then cold, hard reality set in.  Menomena offers a cool t-shirt, a vinyl pressing, and a CD.  That's it.  Yeasayer offers a big deluxe bundle, a CD + a couple MP3s, an LP + a couple MP3s, and an even bigger deluxe bundle.  Neither of them offers a download-only option.  Neither of them is selling through Bandcamp or a similar service.  Neither of them, in short, is catering to me or others like me who truly want to support bands they love, but are not interested in paying an extra $3.60 (for example) for shipping and handling.

And so, bands, I implore you: please give me a download-only, lossless-audio option for your albums!  I will download them.  I will not share them illegally.  I will even promote them on my blog to all 5 of my readers.  Pretty please?  

My plaintive cry to this effect was retweeted by Menomena themselves, and subsequently by many others - telling me I'm not the only one who feels this way.  So maybe, one day soon, things will change. In the meantime, you can check out an awesome track from the new Menomena album here, and you can stream the entirety of the new Yeasayer album here, thanks to the good folks at NPR Music.

eMusic Adds Universal, Changes Their Pricing Model...Again

eMusic will be expanding their music catalogue again, and changing their pricing structure again, as well.  The online music retailer struck a deal with Sony last summer and added Warner to their roster this past January.  And last week they announced they would be adding "more than 250,000" tracks to their database, thanks to a new deal with Universal Music Group - which includes, among many, many others, Def Jam (classic hip-hop), Verve (classic jazz), and Deutsche Grammophon (classic classical).  Fascinatingly, eMusic CEO Adam Klein refers to this new influx of music as a "slug."

All of this is exciting, but I was a little saddened to see that once again eMusic will be changing their pricing model.  I get it, they need to stay competitive, what with 99-cent tunes available on iTunes, and daily MP3 deals on Amazon, etc.  But how many times are they going to change their model in a 1-year time span?  This isn't just a change in how albums are priced, it's actually a fundamental change in the underlying currency - instead of paying for a subscription then getting credits to spend on downloads, you'll soon pay for a subscription then use that actual money to buy downloads.  Here's how they explain it in their update to subscribers:

In order to continue to grow our catalog and to insure a sustainable business in the long term, we need more flexible pricing. So we are changing from today’s credit-per-track system to currency pricing. Your membership will continue just as it is today and your monthly payments will not change. But starting in November, you’ll see tracks and albums priced in dollars and cents instead of credits.

I see good news and bad news here.  The good news is that the major labels are finally starting to understand that DRM is, on the whole, a bad (and very anti-customer) idea.  They're getting on board with the idea that an MP3 is something you can buy and sell, and that you don't need to attach handcuffs to each one.  Of course they're realizing this at a time when buying and selling MP3s is starting to sound as out-dated as buying a physical CD - everyone knows streaming is where it's at, right?  But still, this is a good thing.  And the fact that eMusic's prices (according to eMusic) will represent a "savings of 20%-50% compared to iTunes a la carte prices" is also a good thing.  So what's the bad news?  The bad news is that by switching to a real monetary price per track/album, eMusic has pulled the curtain back to reveal something which was always true about them, but easier to overlook before:  you are basically giving them an interest-free loan every time you pay your membership dues.  When you subscribe, you are, in essence, buying yourself an eMusic gift card that expires at the end of the year.  Again, this has always been true, but somehow putting real dollar amounts on their wares makes it chafe a bit more.

What do you think?  Are you any more or less likely to become (or remain) an eMusic member based on the new changes to their catalogue and pricing?  What alternatives do you use?  iTunes?  Amazon?  Why?  Let me know in the comments.

The Best Video Of The Year Blows

I'm sorry, Beyoncé. Kanye West's little outburst at the VMAs this week is - by far - the most interesting thing about the "Single Ladies" video. Since when is 3 women dancing over an alternately white and grey background "Video Of The Year" material? In fact, none of this year's "Best Video" nominees are memorable beyond a few seconds after watching.

Come on, MTV! Don't you remember when videos were interesting? Well I do. This is not in any way a "best videos of all time" or even a "most interesting videos of all time" list, this is just a few videos that came to mind when I thought back on some music videos that never violated the cardinal rule of television: don't be boring.

• Nine Inch Nails - "Closer"
  I could only find the TV edit, but those "Scene Missing" cards make the whole thing all the weirder.
  
  
  
  
• Menomena - "Evil Bee"
  Creepy, beautiful, and a great complement to a great song.
  
  
  
  
• Bjork - "Bachelorette"
  Michel Gondry takes us down the rabbit hole of recursion in this fantastic video. Just one of many ridiculous and amazing Bjork videos (most have which have been pulled from YouTube - nice marketing, record label!).
  
  
  
  
• Fatboy Slim - "Weapon Of Choice"
  If you're going to make a video that's just dancing, it better either involve treadmills or Christopher Walken.
  
  
  

And, when you're ready to stop having fun and be bored:



Do you have a favorite video? Let me know and link it up in the comments.

Is DRM Dead? The RIAA Says So.

Lifehacker has an interesting piece today (covering a longer piece over at TorrentFreak) about RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy's recent comment in an interview on the subject of DRM: "DRM is dead, isn't it?"

Yes, iTunes dropped DRM, and eMusic recently added tons of new DRM-free Sony tracks. Amazon has offered DRM-free tracks for a while now. But there is still plenty of DRM out there, affecting everything from streaming music to video to e-books. I think Mr. Lamy is trying to be funny, and failing by a mile - the persistent erosion of fair use rights and the treatment of customers as criminals is annoying and at times abusive, and has done little to help artists while doing a lot to retard the growth of culture.

What do you think? Does DRM affect your life? Do you use products that employ DRM technology, or do you try to live a DRM-free life? Let me know in the comments.

Muxtape Founder Says The Internet Will Get Worse, Not Better

This week I had the opportunity to attend an interview with (and ask a question of) Justin Ouellette, the founder of Muxtape. The interview was hosted at a very cool space in Soho called "Meet @ The Apartment" which is run by Marc and Sara Schiller from the Wooster Collective. Justin talked mostly about what Muxtape had been: a simple, free, possibly illegal way for people to share a 12-track mix of songs with the world. Like its cheekier cousin, Mixwit, Muxtape was forced to shut down due to pressure from those bastions of innovation, the RIAA. He talked a little about what Muxtape has become: a platform for bands to market themselves and share their music, like a very stripped-down version of BandCamp.

Justin is primarily a photographer and designer, and his design sense comes through in the Muxtape aesthetic - streamlined, slick, simple. He gave us a peek at the backend of the site, and it's no more complicated to use than the front-end. I'm glad to see that Muxtape is still alive in some form, and it was interesting to hear that Justin had never really planned for any of this to happen - he just made a cool and useful tool for himself and his friends to share music online, and when confronted with the option of folding completely, he chose to try and make a business out of his great idea. Kudos to him.

What was less inspiring was his answer to my question, which was about the future. I think it's bizarre that on every site you go to nowadays, you see ubiquitous messaging urging you to "share" content - on Twitter, Facebook, email, whatever - just share. On the other hand, corporate interests are constantly suing people and organizations that try to share content the way they want to, often pretending there is no such thing as "fair use." Justin mentioned that he would have days where record label marketers would call him and ask that their music be posted to the site, right before lawyers from the same label would call and demand that the music be pulled. Meanwhile artists are increasingly speaking out in favor of file sharing and new distribution methods. I asked him how he thought this tension would resolve itself in the future, and his view was bleak: "The internet is only going to get more locked down." He talked about a recent German censorship law, new methods ISPs are using to do deep packet inspection on user's data streams, and his own experience getting mixed legal advice in the face of an implacable foe.

He ended on a slightly optimistic note, saying that "things will only change when kids who grew up on MySpace are senators." What do you think? Are things going to get worse before they get better? Or are we perhaps coming to the end of a surprisingly young age of ridiculously overbearing copyright law? Tell me your thoughts in the comments.

eMusic Adds Sony Catalog, Raises Prices, Lowers Downloads

I've been a subscriber to eMusic since 2005, back when they let you download unlimited files for a low, low monthly fee. They realized pretty quickly that this was an unsustainable business model, and over the years they've tweaked their pricing/number-of-downloads tiers and ended up somewhere pretty reasonable. For a long time now, eMusic has been a great alternative to iTunes, offering (relatively) cheap, DRM-free, well-tagged MP3s from a wide variety of independent record labels and artists. And that's the way we liked it, dagnabit.

Recently, eMusic announced that they will be adding nearly 200,000 tracks to their download library from Sony's catalog. Coupled with this news is the far less welcome news that they will be lowering the number of monthly downloads for all their plans and simultaneously raising their prices. Predictably, reaction from their subscriber base has been pretty negative. I for one have little interest in the Sony catalog - I love(d) eMusic because it was the place I could go to find independent music for a good price. Unlike many subscribers, I don't feel like they "sold out" in any way by working with a major label - the more music, the better. What I do take issue with is the lowered number of downloads, the higher pricing (in my case, the price will actually double for me, since I was on a grandfathered pricing plan based on how long I've been a subscriber), and the confusion I suffer whenever I try to understand all of their pricing plans.

I'm not sure yet what I'll do when my account comes up for renewal next year. It's cool that their new 180-day plan lets you download up to your limit at any time in the 180 days (much nicer than having a limited number of downloads every month), but the sticker shock may just be too much for me. It's too bad, I've loved eMusic for a long time and up until now I've been very happy with them.

What do you think? Are you a member of eMusic? Will you be keeping your subscription? If you're not a member, are you more likely to join now that they're offering more music? Tell me in the comments.

Jukebox The Ghost Ruined My Rock Show

This past weekend, the missus and I decided to take in a show.  I was excited to see that Say Hi (née Say Hi To Your Mom) was coming to the Black Cat, and that local favorites Jukebox The Ghost were opening for them.  Or so I assumed.  Turns out it was the other way around, which is really too bad for all concerned.

Following the Junior League Band (banjos! fiddles!) , Say Hi did a great set, keeping the banter to a minimum (seriously, rock and rollers, can none of you maintain 30 seconds of witty banter?) and playing some kick-ass songs both old and new.  I was really impressed with their live sound - their records all sound pretty low energy, even on the faster songs, and it was cool to hear the songs played with a much higher level of energy on stage.  I always find it more interesting to hear a band do a different take on their music live as opposed to just regurgitating exactly what you can hear on a recorded album.  Even if some bands take that idea to the extreme.

After they left the stage, I waited eagerly for Jukebox to come on and rock the place.  I should state at this point that while I really like a couple songs from their album Live And Let Ghosts, on the whole I think it sounds like a lot of unrealized potential.  In other words, they would make a great opening band.  However, this being a hometown show for them, I can understand their place in the lineup.  What I don't understand is why they felt it necessary to have a bunch of people come out and spend the next almost 30 minutes taping up xeroxed copies of their band logo (picture a poorly drawn Blinky from Pacman) and throwing glowsticks and whatnot out into the crowd.  Between that, stringing up ghost lights, and other nonsense, they managed to totally kill the momentum of the show.

As if that weren't bad enough, frontman Ben Thornewill took the stage with the smarmiest smile I have ever witnessed at a rock show, and kept it plastered on his face from that point on.

I don't know if he ever actually winked, but it was pretty close to watching Sarah Palin play the keyboards.  They played the one song my wife really wanted to hear, and we left after 4 disappointing songs.  I would  give them another chance if they were opening for someone cool, but I don't think I ever need to see these guys headline again.

Here's a couple songs I like by each band.  Enjoy!

So, you ever walk out of a rock show?  Why?  Tell me in the comments.

While you're pondering, enjoy some other great DC bands.

Muxtape Goes Down

Well, it finally happened. The RIAA somehow got wind of Muxtape, and has apparently forced the site to shut down for a little while.

According to Muxtape's official blog, "No artists or labels have complained. The site is not closed indefinitely. Stay tuned." That sounds pretty ominous to me, despite the upbeat tone.

This is sad news indeed, right on the heels of Tim Westergren of Pandora indicating that the dreaded internet radio royalty rate hikes may soon bring about the demise of Pandora. Of course, Tim has been saying things like this for a while, but it seems like it's more serious these days, as their appeal options are running out.

Fortunately, Mixwit hasn't been taken off the air yet, so enjoy it while it lasts... But first, check out my writeup of Mixwit.

So what can you do? The people at SaveNetRadio are encouraging online listeners to call their representatives and let them know that you think killing online radio is a bad idea. So what are you waiting for? Go do it!

Radiohead In The Rain

Like many of you, I recently went to see Radiohead play at Nissan Pavilion in Virginia. And like many of you, I left determined never to return to, as it's now known, "The Unhappiest Place On Earth."

If you haven't heard, there was a bit of a torrential downpour that night. I know we can't blame Nissan Pavilion for the rain, but we can blame them for having no ability to manage traffic and for apparently designing their venue as though it existed in some magical land where rain water will simply disappear, as opposed to creating giant lakes between you and the men's room.

Many people drove around the venue for hours only to get turned away; others left during the first encore, thinking it would help them avoid traffic, then sat in traffic for hours trying to get home after the show only to learn they had missed the second encore where the band finally played "National Anthem" (that was our car). And many, many, many people got seriously wet. And cold.

NPR's All Songs Considered blog has a post about the show, asking readers what bands are worth the horrible conditions we encountered there. My friend Eduardo, who blogs over at Abstract Citizen, had this to say:

Let's say Miles Davis comes back from the dead. He assembles the "kind of blue" group (all of whom are back from the dead) plus his 1960s quintet. Coltrane ropes his 60s quartet into playing a show too. Miles calls me, asks me to write up a setlist. So does Coltrane. Then Pavement reunite, as do the Talking Heads. The four acts decide to split a bill. Each will play two sets. Hell, I get to write up all the setlists. They give away free single malt scotch, free beer, pie, and sushi at the door. And I will get to hang out backstage for as long as I want.

But then they tell me this will take place at Nissan.

I think I would stay home.

For those of you who were smart enough to stay home, here's a playlist of a few songs they played that night. Enjoy! [Editor's note: they didn't play the only song off the new album (well, off Disc 2) that really would have made this all worthwhile, so I added it to the end of the playlist for my own amusement.] I think Radiohead songs are only available in 30-second-preview mode when the playlist is embedded, so click the "launch standalone" link at the bottom-left of the playlist to hear the full versions.

I Hate The New Pornographers

Yes, it's true. I know this may come as a shock to all my friends. For about as long as I can remember, my friends have been telling me that I would "love" The New Pornographers. I like pop music, I like indie supergroups, I even like the occasional Canadian musician who happens to be in that band (Dan Bejar, I'm looking at you). And I like redheads. This all adds up, supposedly, to the perfect musical storm for me. And yet...and yet, their songs leave me cold. Not just cold, but vaguely angry and wishing I had my three minutes back.

I saw them at the 9:30 Club this week (minus Bejar, unfortunately); I bought the ticket because A) Okkervil River was opening, and B) everyone in the world has told me I need to give this band another chance. The results:

A) Okkervil River was amazing. Will Sheff's heavy-lidded intensity matched his poetic lyrics and dramatic voice perfectly, and the songs all took on great new facets live. Despite the fact that the keyboardist looked like Ted from Accounting, and the fact that they were all wearing suits [Editor's note: The Walkmen wore suits when they opened for Spoon in Philly last week. What's the deal with the suits?], and the fact that, as my friend Eduardo put it, "no matter where you move that capo, you're still just playing C, G, and D," they put on an incredible show comprised of brilliant songs played excellently. I guess you could call me a fan.

B) I walked out about 2/3 of the way through the New Pornographers set. Between the oh-so-witty banter and the endless 2-part-harmony-let's-all-repeat-the-chorus-together-10-times-in-a-row-then-end-the-song setlist, I just couldn't take it. I did bop my head along to one or two songs, and when they covered ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down" in their encore, I stepped back inside to sing along, but other than that, this show did nothing to win me over.

So: if any of my friends or loved ones are reading this, please, please stop recommending The New Pornographers to me. It's just not going to happen.

For your pleasure, here's one of the very few TNP songs I actually enjoy:


And of course some Okkervil River to balance things out:

You would see an embedded player here, but...imeem apparently has a small snag in their licensing deals that results in some tracks that play fine on imeem.com turning into 30-second preview versions when you embed them on your own site. This song, "John Allyn Smith Sails," fell victim to that, so kindly click on it to go hear the full version at imeem. It's worth it, it has a Beach Boys cover at the end!

Do you have any bands that people insist you're just going to love but you end up hating? Let me know in the comments.

imeem: Inching Towards Usability

I don't mean to hate on imeem. I really, really want to use it on my site and I want it to work. When an imeem employee posted to my comments telling me about a new playlist creation tool, I was excited. So excited, I decided to try it out. (Playlist itself coming in another post).

At first, I was really happy with the new playlist creation interface. Much simpler than having to go through all those clicks just to add a song to my playlist. I was stymied a bit by not being able to find the "new" button - but there it was, hiding at the bottom. Once I found it, things proceeded quite smoothly. I even uploaded files without a problem! Woohoo! And I love the "upload image" box for a song - not sure if that was there before, but it's a nice touch. (I do have to say that it's really annoying that the upload tool defaults to "upload a photo" - the site is about music playlists. The time I forgot to change that, my MP3 upload was lost forever, tagged as a photo somewhere on my account.)

Unfortunately, my uploads never made it into the "create a playlist" search box. I had to go to my newly uploaded file's page and add it from there. Boo. Not being able to easily get to my recently uploaded songs (from the create playlist page) became more and more annoying as I would upload a song in a new tab, come back to the original tab, click on "upload," click on "recent," click on my song, hastily hit "pause" since the autoplay option is always set to yes, then click "playlist," then select my playlist from the list. Not as much fun as the nice search feature they built.

(Had my songs shown up in the search results, I wouldn't have known they were mine - when searching for a song, I can't tell what's mine and what's somebody else's. Not a huge deal, but it would be cool to have that option.)

Still, the process wasn't too painful. Much better than last time. However, that feeling of joy was undercut by the fact that many people (myself included) still have troube playing the tracks - for some people it simply skips through each song one by one as though it was some problem with that track, but it will play tracks individually. For others, it will play tracks one at a time but will not advance through the playlist. For others, some tracks work and some don't. Close, but no cigar.

I didn't try to upload multiple files at once, so I don't know if the "hanging forever" issue is still an issue. I'll keep you posted. But overall, I think imeem's getting better. The playlists play for me on Firefox 2 at least 85% of the time.

PS I did see a really cool feature - I clicked onto the page for a Jukebox the Ghost song and saw this little "On Tour" badge, which took me to a page of tour dates for the band. That's hot.

imeem: Not Ready For Prime Time

Do you like usability issues and short-sighted business models? Then I have a site for you: imeem. The site's tagline is "what's on your playlist?" My answer: hard to say, since your upload feature is broken, my playlist is hard to find, and the streaming seems to only work dependably in IE. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

I've been looking for a tool to use to stream tracks on this blog. I found a flash-based one that was pretty cool, but ugly and a bit clunky. Plus, it only handles one track at a time. So I turned to imeem, which has been getting some positive press of late for striking deals with Sony, EMI, and Warner for streaming rights to their artists (the companies share in a portion of the site's ad revenue based on which tracks you stream). Read all about it here.

It's supposed to work like this: 1) You upload a track to imeem. 2) Using Snocap, which imeem acquired not too long ago, the site checks the "audio fingerprint" of your track, and makes sure it's on the approved artist list. 3) The track is now added to your profile, and shareable/streamable by everyone. Awesome.

Here's how it worked for me: 1) I tried to use their "upload multiple tracks" feature about 5 times. 2) It kept stopping in the middle of the upload for some reason. 3) When I finally got my tracks on there, I could only play them in IE. Not awesome at all. In addition to tech problems, the process of creating a playlist (ostensibly the purpose for the whole site) is painful. You have to find your song, click on the song's page (can't add to a playlist from the search results for some reason), have the song auto-start, click the playlist button, then choose the playlist to which you want to add the song. Oh, and good luck finding your playlist once you've made it. It's buried in your profile somewhere, and you will be thwarted at all attempts to get to it in fewer than 4 clicks.

I think my least favorite part of the whole experience was when I turned to their forums for help with my issues. A ton of people have had the problems I described. So what do they do? Fix those problems? Ha! Sure, and then they handed out free lollipops and walked my dog for me. No, instead of solving their tech issues, the good people at imeem post responses to the forums (always under the same user name) peppering the poor besotted user with a metric shit-tonne of stupid first-tier tech support questions (always the same questions) designed to make the user think they probably did something wrong by trying to use the site on a PC via a web browser. Yes, it happens on every computer I use. Yes, it happens when I connect from a different IP address. Yes, your fucking site is fucking broken regardless of whether or not it rained last night. Just fix your shit!

Sorry. It's been a long week. Next up: I try to embed an imeem playlist in a post! Stay tuned for hilarity.

Anyone have any other experiences with this site?

UPDATE, 2/24/08, 5:50 PM: An anonymous commenter claiming to work at imeem (I say "claiming" only because this person is anonymous so I can't say for sure, but I have no reason not to believe him or her) just told me about a new playlist creation feature over at imeem. Review to follow! I'm keeping my fingers crossed, I would really love to have found the tool I can use from now on to post playlists to this blog. I know both of my readers are waiting with baited breath.