Record Executive Comment

[Greg]

A record executive recently commented:

“We are at a turning point. Either the internet becomes an economically viable replacement to CDs or else there is an admission you can’t get fair value from the internet, which would lead to lasting damage to the music industry.”

idk.  I know the record guys want things to go back to the old business model/system.  It's over though.  The "music industry" will be fine.  The recording industry is screwed. 

[chris]

the digital age has changed lots of things. the music...(okay, recording) industry is still in flux. i like having a cd to hold, to own. i don't think dowloading music sounds as good (and we know it didn't sound as good as vinyl). but no one seems to care about great sounding music these days

i deal with the photographic industry...do you have any idea what digital cameras have done to professional photographers? anyone who has access to a walmart can buy a digital camera and take (an unlimited amount) of wedding pictures virtually putting most professional photographers out of business. we used to sell wedding albums for $250. now we sell what has replaced albums..cd/dvd cases...for about $10. go ahead, ask my how business is...

been to a blockbuster video lately?

i think progress is good. it is important. but entire industries, ways for people to make their livelihood are being taken from them. but it is what it is. may as well quote my least favorite band from the late 70's/early 80's...roll with the changes. do you think the digital age put REO Speedwagon out of business too? maybe it aint all bad.

[Greg]

Very interesting.  It sort of makes me think of blacksmiths who made horseshoes and other people who worked in the horse and buggy field.  They had to think that the advent of the car was the worst thing in the world because it was replacing their transportation industry.  New industries, of course, based around the automobile sprang up.  Then I thought further and realized this is different in one sense because the middle class in the replacement (car) industry did quite well.  The change we are seeing now, imo, doesn't seem to be helping the American middle class.  Progress...what is progress? 

(Just to be clear; I liked your post Chris and emphasize with the points made.)

As far as what happened to good music.  The business side has their hand too much into things.  I listen to the college radio station and once in a while hear something that is so intriguing that I feel it stands up to the great music of the past.  I want to say that today's music is an embarrassment, but I can't because I would be just another old white guy complaining about "today's music".  But boy do I want to criticize it.)

[mervap]

Every generation has something to say about "new music", many times uncomplimentary, myself among them...I used to go to a place called Turtles Records & Tapes. There was a guy who worked there named Jack who was a few years older than me who always seemed to know just the best music to recommend to me. He never seemed to miss...even with the "weird" stuff. I think kids today miss out on that. That relationship has been replaced by the Internet....can't say if that's better, just different. I can't imagine that twenty-five years from now they'll be fondly recounting the day they first heard a strange new band.

[chris]

first of all, thanks for allowing me to vent earlier. i feel better just saying...

and about new music...i wasn't reffering to the content so much. if teenyboppers want to listen to their justin beiber, or if twenty somethings want their lady gaga, go ahead. i am wise enough to know that middle age white men is probably not the target audience of young musicians trying to strike it rich these days. what i was reffering to was...the quality of the recording that brings the music to the listener. new music is mixed so loud these days, and no one seems to know it. and when i listen to my daughters i-pod touch, the quality just isn't the same as a brand new cd. i think progress in making music more convenient to listen to, the music has suffered. and no one (besides us, that is) is left standing that screaming...this doesn't sound as good as it should. does this sound as the artist intended it to?

greg, i'm pretty sure i remember reading that you were an album guy, right (that is...a vinyl guy)? i imaging the only reason you would continue to do that is because of the quality of the sound that is reaching your ears. i ask, would a twenty year old pull out their turn table, clean their vinyl album, and oh-so-delicately apply the needle to track one? what happened to the integrity of the music we are hearing? doesn't anyone care?

[Greg]

Got just a sec here.  Yeah, I only buy vinyl.  Listening to the Electric Prunes right now.  I should upload a pic if I can from our living room.  I just got Wilco's new album.  The cd came free with it, so I gave it away.  The reason for vinyl?  Aesthetics and nostalgia.  It's just really cool. to me, playing music like this.  You go pick an album...play it.  What side are you gonna pick?  My kids love it.  I've only just switched to this about 4-5 years ago.  I grew up with a $20 stereo and friends had great stereos.  This is so cool with a good stereo. 

More later...

I made some just like this pic.  This is not my living room.

[chris]

Aesthetics and nostalgia.  It's just really cool. to me, playing music like this.  You go pick an album...play it.  What side are you gonna pick?  My kids love it.

my kids on the other hand... wouldn't know an album side from the outside. was talking with my kids and their friends recently. music came up. they only spoke in terms of songs, not albums. when i mentioned they should try side two of abbey road, they looked at me as if i were talking in swahili. what's a side two? whats an abbey road?

is it too early for a beer?

[mervap]

new music is mixed so loud these days, and no one seems to know it.

I know we've covered this somewhere....you are absolutely correct. It's not a question, as some suggest, of simply turning it down. That's a volume issue and I've had a battle with that years ago, and my left ear got the worst of that one. Most of today's music is so packed with sound within our hearing range that all nuance, all dynamic is lost...even "classic artists" have done this. Thankfully, most of them, if they offer a vinyl alternative, do a separate mix for that. 

[chris]

merv, i know people, even fans, of mccartney that complained about memory almost full for that very reason. i was aware of the issue, it certianly was too loud, but i didn't let it get in the way of me enjoying an otherwise fine album.

can anyone attest to that same problem being present with vinyl?

[mervap]

"Memory Almost Full" did have a loudness issue, but it seemed less irritating than on most others...two that spring to mind are recent offerings by Rush and Bruce Springsteen...I recall reading on a forum somewhere that Bruce's "Magic", when released on vinyl, was done without the "firewalling"...don't know if that's true, but if it is, props to the Boss.

[Kylenz]

when i listen to my daughters i-pod touch, the quality just isn't the same as a brand new cd.

..just a question though, were you plugging in a beautful set of headphones that hug your ears on a cold winter's day and deliver full rich bass tones and warm mids.. or were you listening via those hideous in-ear phones that come with the iPod (and are also very damaging to one's hearing too), or those equally awful 'Skull Candy' headphones that may look trendy and chic but sound dreadful?!

See, if I plug in a nice big set of headphones into my iPod, the old-fashioned type, it can still deliver that same high quality musical experience, especially if you rip your cds with the LAME mp3 codec at 320k joint stereo, or use the Apple lossless encoder (the Apple mp3 and aac encoders built into iTunes are horrible quality and deliver tinny, thin-sounding rips with no real feeling of spatiality that you get with a proper recording.. not that people care these days and don't notice it because they are deafening themselves with those awful white iPod earbuds).

I don't care that the music 'industry' is crumbling. They had the chance to come up with a viable marketing model for the new digital age over a decade ago when Napster came along. But they didn't act quick enough, and iTunes doesn't provide what the more discerning music fans want (i.e. high quality-sounding music as we are saying in this thread). And they make it so difficult to transfer songs to other devices. No wonder people opt for the illegal version. It's usually ripped at the highest quality, 320k or lossless, there's no DRM, and it's free. It's sad when the product they have for sale is so inferior and limited, that they are not doing themselves any favours. If I was a record company exec, I would release everything in several formats including WAV, so people have the choice to convert to whatever format they like, and offer the entire album for no more than 5 bucks. It's not like they have to pay for physical costs or logistics anymore. These guys want to still have their cake and eat it, and that is why they are crumbling. That is why we have revolution in the streets. People want the entire capitalistic system based on consumption loops and greed, to change. Or preferably, collapse. Sure it will put a few folk out of jobs for a while, but in the end will be replaced by something fairer for all. 

[Greg]

The music industry doesn't get my sympathy because they were willing to screw the public for years...until they were caught.  They were convicted of price fixing.  I forgot what the fine was, but it wasn't near what the illegal profits were.  The people ripped off didn't receive the money either.

[oldasSoul]

What a great topic! Lots of things to think about, thanks to the thoughtful posts by everyone.

As an old white guy, I too have issues with the endless compression applied to CDs these days. I believe that this is to "improve" the sound quality when albums are ripped to mp3 for portable devices. Yeah, don't do me any favours! When I've transferred LPs into the digital realm, I'm amazed at how good they sound, even with everything outside of 20Hz - 20kHz cut off. What Merv was saying about dynamics is absolutely right: using compression to make it sound louder and limiting the information to an arbitrary range we lose so much.

One thing that may also be part of the problem is the digital recording of albums. Back in the Lads' day they had 4 or, if they were lucky, 8 tracks to work with. Even something as sonically complex as SPLHCB still has room for silence in it. Now with endless digital tracks to record on, it seems many artists have to fill every space with sound. I find a lot of current popular music is very tiring to listen to because of the endless onslaught of noise. Just because you have 256 tracks doesn't mean you have to jam each one with information.

The other thing that was mentioned earlier was that kids talk about songs now, not whole albums. Seems we all have ADD in the digital age! Who's got the time to sit there and listen to a 45 minute album, flipping halfway through? The artist's vision seems to be getting lost when people can download only their favourite song, and not get a sense of the full album. How would "Tommy" fare today? A million downloads of "Pinball Wizard", 3 of the rest of the album. Of course there are so few mainstream artists willing to put together a coherent album of songs, rather, they produce a collection of singles.

OK, enough of my ranting.

[Kylenz]

Definitely ADD in many ways here, in fact I'll go even more extreme and switch songs say a minute or two into it, onto the next track. And if that next track doesn't hit me with a buzz, it's BOOM onto the next track for my fix! It would have to be a heck of a great album for it to hold my attention all the way through, especially when you can just leave out all the dud tracks with ease. Very good points made.. and I am guilty of all of this.

I also like the dynamics being pushed all the way, because I sometimes struggle to hear really quiet sections, and then I go to turn it up and WHAM back with the loud bits - say a Bohemian Rhapsody-type song. So I do prefer all the tracks to have the same loudness so even the quiet bits can be heard. Sometimes I'm on a bus, in a plane, in a car, and find it hard to sing along to some songs as they get too quiet, so you turn the iPod up and then the next song is excruciatingly loud and distorted. I'm sure it had some kind of auto-levelling feature but it never quite seems to work as I'd like it to.

I don't like cds that are cranked up to the point of distortion, but I like a certain evenness and loudness. The recent Beatles remasters were excellent in this regard. I've never ever had to turn those tracks up nor down on my iPod, they're all just the right level!

[Greg]

Well I have a moment to sit down for lunch today, so...
The topic about today's music is so fascinating to read.  oldassoul, a rant?  No!  Fascinating reading.  I am one who has, or makes, the time to flip an album halfway through funny enough.  I'll bet am am 1 in 200 though if that. 

Listening to a whole album has its good and bad points.  I end up listening to more than a few songs that are crap and that I don't like.  And, no, I don't ever learn to like them.  Ha.  Funny.  Some I end up liking of course. 

Also, R and R started, and remained for years, a singles music.  No?  Am I wrong or just off a little?  We are back to a singles market now.  Yet again I doubt many people went out and bought Dylan singles in the early/mid sixties.  Dang...no time to finish my rambling.

I hope one day to meet up with some of you guys at a Beatles convention someday, or maybe I'll be passing your way on a trip sometime.  I'll tell you what.  You all have a friend on the shore of Lake Superior.

I think Argentina's independence is on July 4th too, so happy fourth to them and us.