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Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Friday, January 6, 2012
My wife left me, my dog died, and now I'm RAKING IN THE DOUGH.
Despite the formulatic nature of country music (male singer = tough guy gets touchy feely; female singer = takes revenge on the non-touchy feely guy); there is some country music that I like. I'm especially fond of Garth Brooks. My mother, more so.
One of the happiest days in her life was when I put one of my old PCs in her bedroom with nothing but iTunes on it, then ripped the entire Garth Brooks box collection onto it. I have failed in instructing her on anything else about computers, but she can start iTunes and listen to Garth to her heart's content. This from a person who still has a difficult time figuring out the satellite TV box. May this be a lesson to you; motivation is the key to leap any technological hurdle.
So, when I heard that Garth would be playing more dates at the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas, I figured I'd surprise my mother with a trip and a show. Then, I saw the price tag: '$225 plus tax and service charge'. That's per seat. Which means, after tickets, hotel, meals and gas, I might be pushing $1,000.00 just for a concert.
The crazy thing is, he'll probably sell out all his concerts.
This is coming from a man who will not sell his music on iTunes and believes that the service is killing music as we know it.
I know where he's going with this. He doesn't like a song being sold for $1.29, when you can sell the same song for $12.99 and get 9 other songs that you could care less about. Perhaps he's too dependent on people like my mother, who have no clue what BitTorrent is, or who live too far in the sticks to have Internet access.
However, I don't believe iTunes is killing music. Truth be told, I think it's taking music back to its roots.
Many of you out there have never seen a vinyl record, and even fewer of you remember listening stations, where you could pull that record out of its sleeve and play it in the store before buying it. Previewing music; a feature of iTunes.
Many artists lament that their albums are hacked up and sold as parts of the whole, believing that single song downloads are killing the album. Never mind that rock and roll pretty much owes its existence to the 7 inch. We also have the EP so that we can get a smaller, concentrated stream of awesomeness, as opposed to 10 tracks of suck (Morrissey, in fact, thrives in, and even prefers, this format). Singles, as well as creating your very own EPs; a feature of iTunes.
The fact is, iTunes isn't killing music. It's sticking its finger in the dyke to keep it from breaking. If you want to point the finger at someone, let's aim it at the music industry itself. I'd elaborate the faults of the record producers, but it would involve bashing an endless list of 'artists' who are merely elevated to fame as part of a pop machine, then frequently discarded as so much used tissue paper after exploiting their 15 minutes of fame. The same system that ignores people with real talent because they 'don't sell', yet ironically WOULD sell if they put half the effort into marketing those talented people as they did with the talentless hacks.
I have purchased whole albums from people that I had only heard of 5 minutes prior to the purchase. There are some people who I had adored yet would not spend one more dime on because they've become terribad. Music, just like any other product, relies on these things:
1) Producing a good product
2) Marketing that product
3) Providing an efficient and cost effective way to distribute that product
I guess what I'm saying is, don't blame #3 when there are epic fails in #1 and/or #2. Especially when you've got nothing to complain about.
One of the happiest days in her life was when I put one of my old PCs in her bedroom with nothing but iTunes on it, then ripped the entire Garth Brooks box collection onto it. I have failed in instructing her on anything else about computers, but she can start iTunes and listen to Garth to her heart's content. This from a person who still has a difficult time figuring out the satellite TV box. May this be a lesson to you; motivation is the key to leap any technological hurdle.
So, when I heard that Garth would be playing more dates at the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas, I figured I'd surprise my mother with a trip and a show. Then, I saw the price tag: '$225 plus tax and service charge'. That's per seat. Which means, after tickets, hotel, meals and gas, I might be pushing $1,000.00 just for a concert.
The crazy thing is, he'll probably sell out all his concerts.
This is coming from a man who will not sell his music on iTunes and believes that the service is killing music as we know it.
I know where he's going with this. He doesn't like a song being sold for $1.29, when you can sell the same song for $12.99 and get 9 other songs that you could care less about. Perhaps he's too dependent on people like my mother, who have no clue what BitTorrent is, or who live too far in the sticks to have Internet access.
However, I don't believe iTunes is killing music. Truth be told, I think it's taking music back to its roots.
Many of you out there have never seen a vinyl record, and even fewer of you remember listening stations, where you could pull that record out of its sleeve and play it in the store before buying it. Previewing music; a feature of iTunes.
Many artists lament that their albums are hacked up and sold as parts of the whole, believing that single song downloads are killing the album. Never mind that rock and roll pretty much owes its existence to the 7 inch. We also have the EP so that we can get a smaller, concentrated stream of awesomeness, as opposed to 10 tracks of suck (Morrissey, in fact, thrives in, and even prefers, this format). Singles, as well as creating your very own EPs; a feature of iTunes.
The fact is, iTunes isn't killing music. It's sticking its finger in the dyke to keep it from breaking. If you want to point the finger at someone, let's aim it at the music industry itself. I'd elaborate the faults of the record producers, but it would involve bashing an endless list of 'artists' who are merely elevated to fame as part of a pop machine, then frequently discarded as so much used tissue paper after exploiting their 15 minutes of fame. The same system that ignores people with real talent because they 'don't sell', yet ironically WOULD sell if they put half the effort into marketing those talented people as they did with the talentless hacks.
I have purchased whole albums from people that I had only heard of 5 minutes prior to the purchase. There are some people who I had adored yet would not spend one more dime on because they've become terribad. Music, just like any other product, relies on these things:
1) Producing a good product
2) Marketing that product
3) Providing an efficient and cost effective way to distribute that product
I guess what I'm saying is, don't blame #3 when there are epic fails in #1 and/or #2. Especially when you've got nothing to complain about.
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