Small Fish, Big Pond

The digital world opens up some awesome potential for making a simple format like audio into a more interactive and dynamic format. The iTunes LP is an idea that while honorable, falls flat. First off if you’re like me and you think iTunes needs to die by fire, here’s a rundown primer of how it works.

The good:

1. DRM free, high quality tracks.

2. Music videos (however, not sure how many).

The Bad:

1. No DRM but iTunes only. It might as well be DRM if you can’t play with anything but iTunes.

2. 256kbps AAC is good but not lossless. If it costs more and its meant to be a full LP it should have all the same benefits as buying a physical LP.
3. Costs more for the same things you get free through other sources like last.fm.
4. Not portable.
5. Bad implementation. Hijacks your iTunes.

While the digital world opens a lot of doors almost nobody listening to music ever bothers to invest this much time into music ONLY. Let’s face it; music is basically a background soundtrack to our lives. We listen in the car while driving or have music play while we surf the net, play video games, while you cook, clean house, or run in the park. Apart from watching music videos on youtube, people rarely stare at the screen watching music related videos and music related pictures while you listen to said music. You may listen to a lot of music but how much time do you spend listening and watching the virtualizer make pretty images on your screen?

Even with physical media I only look at the liner notes and read lyrics the first time I listen to an album. I’m not against add-ons to albums, I think it’s a great way to enrich the music purchase but this is a poor way of doing it. The problems is that digitally people aren’t as interested in the add-ons.

In the physical realm I like that I can get a limited edition CD with bonus features the normal CD doesn’t have (actually this is still uncommon in the US market but common overseas). In most cases the bonus consists of more tracks, and usually a companion DVD. To total package of a physical “Limited Edition” is: music, lyrics, liner notes, pictures, music videos, “making of” videos, bonus tracks, and often posters or even t-shirts in some cases.

For this Digital version they’re treating the lyrics and pictures like they’re bonus material even though they’re standard on a normal CD. The addition of music videos is good. But the visualizers and flashy screens are just fluff. And we still don’t get bonus tracks. Plus it’s not a lossless copy, if it was FLAC I could buy the LP online and burn it to Disc for those times I do want a physical copy. We can go Physical -> Digital without loss, why not Digital -> Physical?

Then there is the portability issue. If I buy tracks on iTunes I can take them on the bus with an iPod, but the fancy additions stay on the computer. While the tracks are DRM free and can be converted to non-apple formats for other players the additional features are locked to iTunes or Safari (no WMP WinAmp, Firefox, or Amarok). Although Jay says you can hack the videos out, that shouldn’t be necessary. The labels should sell the tracks so that I can play them on any player, the videos should be a standard file type that can be played on any player as well. Then all of our video capable media players can be filled with a video playlist, not just an audio playlist. So long as everything is Apple proprietary this isn’t possible.

The final reason this won’t work is that it doesn’t solve the core reason that people online only buy music a track at a time. People are sick of 2-3 good tracks and 10 “filler tracks” that are unwanted.

For getting people to buy LP’s instead of individual tracks EVERY full album purchase on iTunes should come like this by default at the normal album price. This is what iTunes should have been doing from the get-go to entice us into putting up with those 10 filler tracks. As a more expensive version of an normal track only album it’s not worth it.

6 months from now I’m sure Apple will tout how this has revolutionized music and now the new tablet will make more use of it; and people will eat it up. But in reality labels will be rumbling that it’s not making a noticeable difference and while many iTunes LPs will have been sold it will still pale in comparison to normal track sales. 2-3 years from now they will fade away and be forgotten as another failed experiment to change with the times.