One Disc to Rule Them All
In a distinct fuck you to his fans, Ben Folds and Epic have released Songs for Silverman as a "DualDisc" instead of a standard Compact Disc. The DualDisc is a "normal" (but non-conformant) CD on one side and a DVD on the other. Because it's thicker than a standard CD, it doesn't work in some drives, including the slot-loading drives on my PowerBook and fishbowled_soul's iBook. The fine print on the back of the case warns: "The audio side of this disc does not conform to CD specifications and therefore not all DVD and CD players will play the audio side of this disc." Nice.
What's on the reverse? All the songs in Dolby 5.1 surround, a 22-minute "making of" documentary, and a bonus track which, as Folds explains in the documentary, kind of sucks. I understand why films are mastered in surround sound, but does it really add anything to piano pop? It was half-exciting when my high school physics teacher played us Floyd on an 8-track, but who listens to Ben Folds on ludes?
Record labels are beefing up CD packaging to reduce piracy (everybody wants the 70 page liner notes), so is this just a sales gimmick? I doubt it. Consumers were smart enough to realize that copy protection is a bug, not a feature, so hopefully they'll be smart enough to see through this as well.
A CD that I can't play on my iPod is a CD that I don't want. Am I sending it back to Amazon? Not this time, because it rips fine in the drive on my Linux box.