¶ As yet, I haven’t bought anything from the iTunes Music Store. This isn’t due to the lack of choice in the UK store (an improving situation) but due to the medium itself. It’s not that I don’t believe in the digital format: I have 8Gb of mp3s sitting on my iBook and iPod, but almost all are ripped from my own CDs. Even the DRM doesn’t bother me too much (although it should – Jeremy explains) and nowadays so-called CDs are coming with ‘copy protection’ built-in (I refuse to buy them – don’t get me started on how Europe has been duped into being a testbed for CD-crippling techniques). The reasons for my ambivalence to iTMS are threefold: value, tangibility and information.
iTMS is not necessarily a cheap way to buy music. An average album of 11 tracks would cost 8.69 from iTMS; local independent record shops sell CDs for less than this, particularly back-catalogue albums. Admittedly a chart CD album would cost about 12, but for your money, you get a physical item storing a higher quality format from which you can freely create the same (or superior) product to that on sale at iTMS. And that’s the rub: sound quality aside, I can’t get my head around not getting something physical for my money – the artwork, the jewel case, the sleeve notes, the CD itself. The same principle applies to the vinyl I still buy – vinyl pressing quality is at an all time high, particularly with the increase of double and triple disk albums (as a rule, less music pressed onto one disk increases quality) and they often come in fabulous gatefold packaging – there’s no denying you get more for your money (4 square feet of artwork as opposed to 1 square inch with an iTMS download).
So perhaps iTMS isn’t aimed at album buyers, but designed more for dipping in; maybe replacing the singles buying habits of old. I still buy a quite lot of singles: those by the few artists I collect, those by artists that I’m less keen on but like a particular song, and those by artists who are new to me but come recommended. Based on these habits, I could buy from iTMS and save a bit of money (79p as opposed to 2.99) but an important factor (to me) in the music buying experience is removed – the element of surprise presented by the two b-sides which you wouldn’t be able to buy from the iTMS because they don’t sell singles.
More fundamentally, however, when compared to a bought CD, a music file downloaded from iTMS has a disturbing paucity of information about the track – pretty much all you get is title, artist, album and date. City of Sound recently highlighted how this shortcoming affects original jazz recordings:
The basic lingua franca in jazz – of information around composers, sidemen, album sleeves and recording dates – is being diminished – replaced by ‘artist’ and composer and a thumbnail. Sleeve notes, fabulous artwork are gone. And falsehoods are introduced – album date is a classic.
Consider this comparison at harlem.org between the information contained on a single original record label from a 1950s Miles Davis single with that available via ‘Get info’ on the corresponding file from iTMS. No contest.
The same issue affects contemporary music just as much as it does 50s jazz. Hip hop artists often collaborate in production as well as vocals, and samples are used liberally; the associated credits are missing from downloaded tracks. Many ‘dance acts’ such as Chemical Brothers, Leftfield, Death In Vegas and Mr Scruff rely on guest vocalists and musicians. For example, the Chemical Brothers’ latest album, Surrender, features a plethora of important artists. From the CD sleeve credits:
Track 1 features samples from Nicole’s recording ‘Make It Hot’. Produced under license from Elektra Entertainment Group by arrangement with Warners Special Products. Track 3 vocals and guitar Bernard Sumner. Features additional vocals by Bobby Gillespie. Track 5 features vocals by Noel Gallagher. Track 6 contains a sample from the recording ‘Asian Workshop’ by James Asher, licensed courtesy of Studio G. Track 7 features vocals by Hope Sandoval. Track 8 contains a sample from the recording ‘Earthmessage’ licensed courtesy of Amplitude. Track 9 contains a sample from the recording ‘The Roof Is On Fire’ by Rockmaster Scott and The Dynamic Three, licensed courtesy of Danya Records Ltd. Track 11 features vocals, guitar and piano by Jonathan Donahue.
It’s vital for the integrity of music that these credits somehow remain in the public domain. It’s also important for the business – I bought two albums on the back of enjoying Surrender and finding the vocalists in the credits (Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval and Mercury Rev’s Jonathan Donahue).
So my issue isn’t with iTMS per se – if I were to buy music online (and I’m sure I will sooner rather than later) that’s where I would head. That said I do have problems with music in a solely digital form. iTMS and the record labels could help the situation by providing more track information with downloads (there’s loads of scope in ID3) and by offering sleeve notes for download with album purchases. I’ll probably get over the value and intangibility thing, but not supplying the full credits is to deny the downloading public an integral part of the music package.
Comments
1
Vis a vis DRM – if you fancy paid downloads of anything on Warp, and lots of other neato labels (inc. One Little Indian, home of Bjork), then try Bleep.com.
Paid for mp3 downloads, no DRM.
Marvellous.
But yup, I’m still strangely attracted to CDs. Like you say, it’s a full quality archive which I can then turn to mp3, or wma, or whatever.
2
I also prefer buying physical albums. Not a person I talk to understands my choice of actually buying albums, as opposed to downloading them – something I don’t do, out of principal. But my choice is clear: I love to have them in my sight, between my favourite DVDs and books – imagine a wall with the best movies, books and albums you’ve listened, and then take a look at my wall :p
I love to have the album, even though I rip them immediately to toss them onto my iPod. Oh, and I buy my albums, DVDs and books – don’t download them, they put their hard work in it.
3
Re: liner notes:
Josh Ellis once started putting together a proposal for a standard format for liner notes. Not sure if it ever went anywhere.
http://www.zenarchery.com/archives/001239.html
http://www.zenarchery.com/archives/001241.html
4
a friend of mine works in the record industry, so i get pretty much all my new cd’s for free. if i do download something on the sly (naughty, i know), then i’ll buy the cd if i like it. i like having the physical product on my shelf. i like seeing the cover and reading the liner notes. if there’s a guest vocal, i like to know who it is.
for those reasons, i really can’t see me ever using iTMS, either.
5
Just wanted to say that iTunes do sell singles, for example:
Razorlight – Golden Touch is 2.37 and features Golden Touch, If You Know What I Know and Losing Your Mind.
6
There’s been a lot of talk in the media recently of how the download will replace the album. I really can’t see this happening.
Quite often I see an album as a whole listening entity. Granted, I might listen to the odd track on the computer, but I usually listen to CDs as a whole – whether on the computer or on the stereo. Take Radiohead, for example. All of their albums after OK Computer really can only be played as one whole piece – and that’s how they work best. Now, would normal consumers pay money to download tracks like fitter happier? No, they’d probably just go for the singles.
However, it is the whole experience of owning which is the strongest. Some albums are beautifully packaged: for instance I recently bought These Were the Earlies by The Earlies, which came in the form of a bound hardback book with a CD in the back cover. You end up buying a physical thing, which often has extra artwork that’s nice to look at, and you feel like you actually own it.
I won’t even go into file qualities…
7
I don’t know how old you are, but wanting something “physical” isn’t something you hear from college kids (or younger). They don’t think of music like older folks do.
Even me, at 31… I no longer want the physical CD. Could be that I’m in the music business and have thousands of them, but even if I didn’t, why clutter your home/office/car when you can have it all on one small unit?
8
Heh, I’m 16.
I don’t think of them as clutter at all, really. Also, I think that I’d be more likely to run the risk of losing my files to a computer error than to someone stealing my CDs.
I don’t know; I just like to be able to have whatever I’ve bought, instead of just data on my hard drive.
9
Because, as I wrote, it depends on whether you just want to the music or the whole package.
10
This lack of data has put me off buying David Bowie at the BBC amongst other albums, because I need to know the recording date of each track for my dynamic playlists to work and I need to know the musicians so I can mentally slot the sessions inamongst the albums. I would also imagine there would be long liner notes and photos for an album like that.
So far I have bought music where I have the original vinyl – to save time digitizing – or have access to a discography on the web. allmusic.com is excellent in this regard.
11
David Hooper: I dont know how old you are, but wanting something physical isnt something you hear from college kids (or younger). They dont think of music like older folks do.
I don’t think you know what you’re talking about David. I work with many teenagers as a part time youth worker and I can tell you for a fact that 100% of them would rather hold the genuine CD in their hand, with sleeve notes and disc/cover art than have a home burnt CD or have the data on their iPod or home computer.
Most kids still save their money and go out and buy an album on the weekend. They love to have the real thing.
Sure many of them will download illegally, try-before-you-buy sort of thing, but if the music’s good, they’ll buy it.
12
I’m sure there is a million reasons why this isn’t possible, but I would gladly pay $2.00 plus the $9.99 price for the option to have apple ship me the physical CD as well as download the songs immediately.
One of my favorite things about the ITMS is the ability to instantly buy and listen to an album I read about in a magazine. My least favorite thing is not getting the physical album art and notes.
If I had the option to obtain the best of both worlds, I would never buy music anywhere else.
13
Did you miss 2002’s Come With Us? Admittedly, it’s not as good as Surrender or Dig Your Own Hole, but there are some pretty good tracks on it nonetheless.
I’m 30 and about to move, and the three big boxes full of CDs, let alone the four feet long stack of vinyl and the pile of old cassettes, are going to be a pain. I’ll probably keep them, but I hardly ever refer to the inlays, and I don’t see that changing.
Even if the inlays were digital, I’m not sure I’d refer to them often. Mind you, I am on a crusade to populate all my MP3s with album art, so there is some metadata I’d like.
14
What still really baffles me is why they don’t offer tracks in some lossless compressed format such as APE. Sure, I hear you say about bandwidth and the like, but then there are programs out there that deal with that. Building in something akin to Bit Torrent into iTunes would sort that out in an instant surely?
Personally I’m not sure I would trust someone else to decide what quality is “good enough” for me. That’s why I still prefer to rip my own CDs.
15
Even more baffling when you consider that Apple’s own lossless encoding is built into iTunes.
16
i wont use it either, id much prefer a CD original (whats 10 a week to buy a new CD really?) and rip them myself….better quality, I know it will work, ive paid for it and i still have a shiny cd and clear cut proper case to look at when im done. iTMS no, thanks.
17
Same here. The sound quality is the main reason I prefer CD’s (or more rarely vynil). Then there’s the physical thing, the art and liner notes, but also the act of picking up a CD and putting it in the stereo. It may be silly, but it’s just not the same thing when you’re clicking on a computer or iPod. It feels… cheaper. Like the music has less value.
I love the convenience of mp3’s and the iPod for when I’m walking or cycling or on the train, but it’s an entirely different experience from listening to the CD on your own stereo, there’s no comparison. So I too buy the CD’s of bands I like and transfer them to the iPod, so I can listen to them both ways. I download mp3’s (the non-RIAA-approved way) to get a feel for stuff I haven’t heard yet, but if I really like something I just have to buy it on CD.
I do understand the appeal of something like the iTMS and I think it could make sense when you just want to get single tracks instead of whole lp’s. But, audio quality aside, like you said, the price is just not so convenient for entire albums. I can spend the same or only slightly more at Amazon or with discounts in local stores and get the real thing.
18
I understand what you mean. It seems to me that all that’s left between buying music on iTunes vs Amazon are the liner notes. I’m personally tired of paying $7 more for an album that comes with nothing more than the music on a cd ( dare I say this is more common on the Big 4 labels? ). Then there’s the obverse where I’ve bought iTunes music only to be told that the liners had some cool stuff in it ( Jim White was one instance of this for me.
So I decided to make a website centered around this information, because I sure couldn’t find it anywhere. I hope it will actually help me and others in the future for spending their money more wisely. It’s at http://Anatrove.net if you are interested
Add your comment
Comments are now closed on this post. If you have more to say please contact me directly.