((cactus may dance))
The Austin Chronicles
I was going to write an intro to this, an "Austin Chronicles Preface" if you will, but then i decided that would probably be pretty boring. So instead, here's some things i wrote when i was down there... with no foreword whatsoever! Crazy!
November Twenty Second, 2oo4
I bought a copy of Change for six fifty at a local used cd store and i've been thinking ever since i made said purchase: how is this any different from downloading music? It's essentially the same thing; someone gets tired of a cd, puts it online (or sells it) and then you come along and pick it up. The record industry still isn't getting anything for purchase, nor is the band. It'd be exactly the same if that kid never sold the cd and it's still sitting around in his living room gathering dust, except that it's getting listened to again. Do you see any differences between the used record store and the peer to peer client? I don't. In fact, to me it just seems like you cut out the middle man, in this case, Cheapo Records in Austin, Texas.
Essentially, all my six dollars went toward is the disc and the packaging. A nice bonus; the cloud pattern looks a lot better than what a blank cd with "Change" in my ugly handwriting would. But still, those six dollars aren't going anywhere else, are they?
Eventually the record industry is going to have to embrace the fact that digital music is the inevitable future. It may lack some of the romance of a seven inch, but it's convenient, sensible, and a whole lot more space conscious. It'll be a little while, but i guarantee eventually everyone will be getting all their music from the iTunes Music Store and similar applications.
Hopefully, this method of buying music will replace the current one, because the current one sucks. Why should we be giving ten dollars for every cd purchase to some blood sucking record corporation? I don't want Warner Brothers to get the money for a cd i buy. In iTunes, it's possible (once we find a way to push those record companies out of the way) to be paying the artists themselves near exclusively (with the exception of ten or twenty cents to the kind folks of the iTunes Music Store for freeing good music from it's restricting record labels).
This method is not only much better for the consumer (cheaper, easier, etc.) but much better for the artists, who don't have to worry about being controlled by a label anymore. Any unsigned band could use iTunes without the consent of some dick headed record exec. I Must Have shouldn't need a contract to be heard, and with the coming of digital music's take over, i don't think they will.
Until then, i'll be spending a lot of time uploading used records onto my computer, while the cd gathers dust but the AAC files gets plenty of airtime on iTunes.
Oh, and speaking of iTunes, i've made easily the greatest mix the world has ever bared witness to. I made it for Laura, and though i started making it with her interests in mind (mostly danceable, upbeat rock music like Sleater-Kinney and The Sounds and things like that), as i added more and more to it, i realized i was beginning to abandon her interests and just focus on my insatiable desire for melancholy. But i really went all out this time. I've got some of the saddest songs i've ever heard on this cd, yet, at the same time, mixed in with some really weird stuff that even i didn't know i like (exp: The Ramones and Jackson 5).
The results are really wild. A couple of those songs have made me tear up and yet, immediately after that, there's a young Michael Jackson singing 'I Want You Back', and how can you not smile with that playing? That's one of the happiest dance records ever, but it comes right after one of the saddest folk songs i've ever heard. I love it. I rarely listen to the mixes i make people, but this one has got me hooked.
I was going to write an intro to this, an "Austin Chronicles Preface" if you will, but then i decided that would probably be pretty boring. So instead, here's some things i wrote when i was down there... with no foreword whatsoever! Crazy!
November Twenty Second, 2oo4
I bought a copy of Change for six fifty at a local used cd store and i've been thinking ever since i made said purchase: how is this any different from downloading music? It's essentially the same thing; someone gets tired of a cd, puts it online (or sells it) and then you come along and pick it up. The record industry still isn't getting anything for purchase, nor is the band. It'd be exactly the same if that kid never sold the cd and it's still sitting around in his living room gathering dust, except that it's getting listened to again. Do you see any differences between the used record store and the peer to peer client? I don't. In fact, to me it just seems like you cut out the middle man, in this case, Cheapo Records in Austin, Texas.
Essentially, all my six dollars went toward is the disc and the packaging. A nice bonus; the cloud pattern looks a lot better than what a blank cd with "Change" in my ugly handwriting would. But still, those six dollars aren't going anywhere else, are they?
Eventually the record industry is going to have to embrace the fact that digital music is the inevitable future. It may lack some of the romance of a seven inch, but it's convenient, sensible, and a whole lot more space conscious. It'll be a little while, but i guarantee eventually everyone will be getting all their music from the iTunes Music Store and similar applications.
Hopefully, this method of buying music will replace the current one, because the current one sucks. Why should we be giving ten dollars for every cd purchase to some blood sucking record corporation? I don't want Warner Brothers to get the money for a cd i buy. In iTunes, it's possible (once we find a way to push those record companies out of the way) to be paying the artists themselves near exclusively (with the exception of ten or twenty cents to the kind folks of the iTunes Music Store for freeing good music from it's restricting record labels).
This method is not only much better for the consumer (cheaper, easier, etc.) but much better for the artists, who don't have to worry about being controlled by a label anymore. Any unsigned band could use iTunes without the consent of some dick headed record exec. I Must Have shouldn't need a contract to be heard, and with the coming of digital music's take over, i don't think they will.
Until then, i'll be spending a lot of time uploading used records onto my computer, while the cd gathers dust but the AAC files gets plenty of airtime on iTunes.
Oh, and speaking of iTunes, i've made easily the greatest mix the world has ever bared witness to. I made it for Laura, and though i started making it with her interests in mind (mostly danceable, upbeat rock music like Sleater-Kinney and The Sounds and things like that), as i added more and more to it, i realized i was beginning to abandon her interests and just focus on my insatiable desire for melancholy. But i really went all out this time. I've got some of the saddest songs i've ever heard on this cd, yet, at the same time, mixed in with some really weird stuff that even i didn't know i like (exp: The Ramones and Jackson 5).
The results are really wild. A couple of those songs have made me tear up and yet, immediately after that, there's a young Michael Jackson singing 'I Want You Back', and how can you not smile with that playing? That's one of the happiest dance records ever, but it comes right after one of the saddest folk songs i've ever heard. I love it. I rarely listen to the mixes i make people, but this one has got me hooked.