iTunes for Mac selections

[RichardWarner]

Interesting to see which Universal albums managed to make it to Apple's new downloadable music service.

Carpenters: 250 songs
Sergio Mendes: 55 songs
Jobim: the "Wave" and "Tide" albums
Police: 217 songs
Tamba 4: the "We and the Sea" album
Wes Montgomery: the "Day in the Life" and "Road Song" albums
Burt Bacharach: 70 songs including the "Reach Out" and "Make It Easy on Yourself" albums
George Benson: 250 songs including the "Other Side of Abbey Road" album
Edu Lobo: the "Sergio Mendes Presents" album
Paul Winter: the "Common Ground" album
Lani Hall: one song, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" from the Windham Hill various artists sampler

But:
Chris Montez: 0
Sandpipers: 0
Pete Jolly: 0
Baja Marimba Band: 0
and...
Herb Alpert: 0.

 

[jimac51]

Richard-I think the Lani Hall selection is from BMG. Also,does the 250 Benson selections all come from Universal holdings or are Warner,his most popular era,mixed in? Mac

 

[RichardWarner]

Most of the Benson cuts are from Warner; just those two albums from A&M. No "Shape of Things to Come."

Apple has said they will be adding cuts to the roster, particularly from independent labels...but the Mac gossip Web sites have been chatting about all the cuts that have been taken off line since the service made its debut.

I still maintain that, over time, this will be the answer to acquiring music that has been cut out of catalogs because of the expense of maintaining and distributing the inventory. As long as the labels have rights to the music, why not maximize the return investment?

In the case of Alpert's music, I think this speaks to two issues. He has no desire to live in the past --- practically denying us access to the cuts --- and (hopefully) his plans to release a big box set, coupled with a promotional push. Did I just contradict myself?

 

[Rudy]

Warning: thread crap.

I've been reading elsewhere that for now, only Mac users can download. The rest of us in the computing world who use Unix and Windows MAY get the ability in "months". Creating downloadable music for such a niche market machine as a Mac isn't going to make much of a noticeable dent in anything as far as I'm concerned. Not everyone has an iPod, nor plans to. I just see it as yet another attempt by Apple to save the company and sell computers.

And just my own personal rant: compressed music sounds like sh*t anyway, so I have no real interest in any downloadable music. MP3 is tolerable at the highest bit rates, but it loses SO much even there, I don't see downloadable music replacing physical music carriers like CD, DVD-A or SACD. For the kids out there, it's cool (since they couldn't hear the difference anyway, and they may learn that music acquired should be paid for...something their parents obviously can't teach them), but for anyone who is a collector of music, this is one collector who would rather have something in my hands to show for my purchase.

 

[RichardWarner]

You sound like my cranky old college roommate.

Dad loves Buicks, I hate 'em. My wife loves Mexican food, I'm sick of it. My daughter loves cats. I like cats parboiled. You like Windows, I built a business on Macintosh and hate the Windows interface. Whatevvver.

My point was: since most Forum readers don't have Macs, I thought I'd fill you in on what this much-hyped music service is offering by way of A&M stuff.

There is some drawback to the quality --- I downloaded "Save You Love Me" by Fleetwood Mac a short time ago and the beginning is clipped.

But this is the future. Easily downloadable, no need to maintain retail inventory, back catalog finds new life. What the heck? I'm sure my college roommate is sour about it, too.

 

[RichardWarner]

Yes, iTunes is only available for Mac at the moment, and yes, I'm sure Apple is making it exclusive in order to add value and attempt to sway buyers to the Mac platform.

But the fact is, iPod sales doubled when Apple ported it to Windows, and Apple intends to do it with the new iTunes download software soon.

The real hang-up, according to the trades, is that three of the five major labels consider Apple's effort an experiment and won't grant rights to a Windows version of iTunes until they have more proof that the system prevents piracy.

Meantime, Windows users will likely see more reasonable download services appear...or existing download services offer more reasonable terms.

 

[Harry]

And just my own personal rant: compressed music sounds like sh*t anyway, so I have no real interest in any downloadable music. MP3 is tolerable at the highest bit rates, but it loses SO much even there, I don't see downloadable music replacing physical music carriers like CD, DVD-A or SACD. For the kids out there, it's cool (since they couldn't hear the difference anyway, and they may learn that music acquired should be paid for...something their parents obviously can't teach them), but for anyone who is a collector of music, this is one collector who would rather have something in my hands to show for my purchase.

The analogy's been made before, but I'll mention it again here. Back in ancient history when I was a teenager/young man, I had this evil device for stealing music -- a reel-to-reel stereo tape recorder. I could 'steal' records, in full stereo, off of any radio station, all for the price of the blank media. I didn't have to pay a thing to any record company, and built quite a library of songs from about 1968 to around 1976 or so. It was a bit harder for me to make my own 'compilations', but it was do-able, with the use of another tape recorder, and my buddy had one I could use if needed.

But somewhere along the line, I realized what I had - a collection of records taped off of the radio. Some were clipped by a DJ at the beginning or end, some were noisy as hell, some were off-balance stereo-wise, and some sounded reasonably good. Bottom line - none sounded as good as owning the actual record did. Once I learned that, I rarely if ever taped another song off of the radio. (Of course, by then I was WORKING in radio, and got to SEE what they did to those records before they hit the airwaves!)

I wonder if down the road, whether a larger percentage of the 'kids' who are now doing all of the downloading will realize what they've really got - a collection of tracks downloaded as files from the net. Yeah, they've got an easier time of it loading them into portable mp3 players and burning them to CD for portability. But when they seriously sit down to listen to them in the future alongside of their purchased super-duper-ultra-high-bit-remastered media-of-the-day, I wonder if they won't do what I did: relegate the old collection to a bit of nostalgia and end up buying the songs that they REALLY cared about in the new format.

I realize that an mp3 file can sound pretty decent, especially to a non-audiophile, but then I (and everyone I dazzled way back then with my glorious stereo recorder!) thought the sound of those tapes were pretty decent too.

The analogy doesn't completely hold true with today's technology in that anyone today can get a 'perfect' copy of any CD they happen to encounter, avoiding the whole mp3 route if they desire. We couldn't do that back then. Yes, I could borrow a friend's LP and make a dub of the whole thing onto reel-to-reel - and it sounded way better than a radio-taped version, but it still wasn't a perfect duplicate. I wonder if today's dubbers will feel the need to ultimately acquire a 'real' copy of their music in the future, especially if technology begins to make them somehow outdated.

Harry
...looking both forward and backward, online...

 

[RichardWarner]

...and it didn't have the marvelous packaging, which doesn't mean diddly to some people, but to others is part of the whole experience.

I'm new to this downloading-thing: Napster and PressPlay and the rest didn't really work with Macs. My impressions are that I miss seeing any info about the songs I'm buying...and the licensing limitations (the purchased tunes will only play on three computers) are a hassle.

I find I only purchase tunes off albums where I only want one cut...or where the music isn't readily available on CD. The fidelity, of iTunes, anyway, is fine.

 

[Rudy]

But this is the future. Easily downloadable, no need to maintain retail inventory, back catalog finds new life. What the heck? I'm sure my college roommate is sour about it, too.

If the sound quality weren't so poor (I can hear how bad MP3s can be...and have heard from others with good ears that the Mac tunes are sometimes worse), and the selection of tunes was different, I wouldn't have a problem.

But one reason this won't work well right now is because the majority of internet users still don't have broadband, and they can't justify paying $50/month to get it. I can download a full FreeBSD distribution in 75 minutes with my connection...that's a CD image of about 600+ MB. On a modem, it downloads at a rate (for me) of about 12MB per hour...that's 50 hours. An extreme example, but someone wanting to download a few albums' worth of songs via modem is in for a mighty long wait.

Someone will come along with a "killer app" one of these days though, and get it right. Something that's relegated only to the Mac platform does not have a bright future...they'll need to move fast to get Unix and PC users access as well, or they'll be branded by the buying public as incompatible.

FWIW, there was reportedly some computer virus being spread by Kazaa recently. Serves 'em right.

 

[Murray]

If you consider the price that Apple is charging per song, if you download a full album, it ends up costing as much as the actual CD would. For that price, you get inferior sound quality, no artwork, and you even have to burn the disc yourself! Pretty crappy deal if you ask me!

I would only consider paying to download music if the sound quality was the same as the real thing:

- music provided in uncompressed CD images
- artwork available for download
- priced substantially (at least 50%) lower than a factory CD. I would have to provide my own blank CD & jewel case, paper, ink, and label to print the artwork, and in the end, it is still a homemade copy with no resale value. The price should reflect this.

As it stands, I would much rather buy the real thing, especially with releases by my favourite artists. For rare, out of print stuff, and new artists that I just want to sample to see if I'd like them, I will continue to download free mp3's. The sound quality is poor, but for what you get, the price is right!

Murray
...who thinks free mp3's are the best promotional tool for the record industry since MTV...

 

[Rudy]

Just read that Apple has already sold one million song downloads since the service's public debut.

Had this been for the rest of the computing world, it would have been at least 10 times as many sold. Or if you really twist the numbers around, that's already 9 million sales lost.

Poor value aside...that's a lot of money. There's a market for it; now it just needs someone to market it to the masses. Properly.

 

[kenny]

As far as the cost being the same as an album, I don't think the majority of the people downloading songs are actually downloading all the songs on each album. They're probably only downloading the ones they have heard. I would guess they're only downloading 3 or 4 songs off each album. This is one of the reasons I've heard some bands like the Beatles haven't made their songs available for download. They recorded their albums to be listened to as a whole. This trend of downloading only a few songs off an album gets away from that. That's what I've heard at least.

 

[RichardWarner]

Word today: 2 million songs downloaded in just over two weeks.
50% of sales are for complete albums.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I think it's kinda sad that this is supposed to be "the future of music." Time was when you could go into a store, plop down your money, take the music home, (or to the car), put the disk on, and read the liner notes (or take a drive) while enjoying the music and having the sense that you were hearing a new work of art for the first time.

Now you gotta get to a computer, boot up, go online, log in, search for songs, sample, order, wait for download, save file to hard disk, buy blank CDs, burn to CD, and then listen to the music while staying online to surf the artists' website to read the album info and "view secret content," and hoping the songs are complete and un-"clipped." And if your computer crashes mid-stream, start over from crash point. If you lose your hard drive containing your music collection, you're screwed...start over from Point Zero.

All this for essentially the same price as a CD costs, but with lower sound quality. And you don't get any packaging for your new music purchase. Add 50¢ for jewel box.

Geez, call me an old fuddy duddy, but I liked the old way better.

 

[Harry]

I'm with you Mike. Computers are for computing. The stereo system is for playing music. A place for everything and everything in its place. Call me a fuddy-duddy too -- or maybe just a Capricorn.

Harry
...computing, online...

 

[Rudy]

It's a bit different with broadband--my main computer is on 24/7, and continuously hooked up and online. For many users, it's just a matter of sitting down and hitting a download site. Thing is, this has become a way of life with many "kids" who know of no other way to get music but to download it...and for them, quality means squat, and jewel cases are just something to discard when you get a new CD. For the same money, I would rather have the real thing myself. For singles, though, or just to sample, though, having a tune on the computer, recordable to a CD, works just fine.

One of my computing buddies has gone so far as to convert this hundreds of CDs to MP3, stores them on a central server at home, and has a computer wherever he needs music to play back. To me that's a little TOO much...