“Compact Discs”, remember them? I got one for Christmas, and you know, they’re not a terrible idea.
First off, I have to plug the music: Vivaldi string concertos by Tafelmusik feat. Lamon & Bylsma, from 1992. Great music well played, and a beautiful-sounding recording; totally recommended. BTW, there seem to be lots of versions of this one for sale online here and there, some for less than the one I linked to (which I picked because it’s got the same cover art as mine).
For the last couple of years, I’ve bought music like this:
(My favorite) By download direct from the artist, but only if they offer CD quality.
By mail-order from the artist, but only once, when I got Jack White’s Blunderbuss from his Web site; terrific vinyl with a coupon for a 320K MP3 download.
From audio-weenie site HDtracks, where you can buy CD-quality (or higher) downloads of quite a lot of good music; although I’m personally unconvinced of the musical value of greater-than-CD bitrates.
Gosh, is there any surprise that record stores are going out of business?
But this CD thing... it’s a package that doesn’t bulk up your luggage much, rips into your online collection in just a few minutes, serves as a compact easy-to-store backup medium, and comes with a nice little paper booklet with an attractive cover and lots of info about the recording. I guess by most measures they’re obsolete;but they’re really not terrible.
And as I’ve said before... Dear musicians: Sell your own damn music off your own damn website, and offer a version without lossy compression; it’s OK to charge a little more for that.
Comment feed for ongoing:
From: JulesLt (Jan 05 2013, at 18:08)
Let's turn the statement on its head and day all software should not be sold through retailers or App stores but directly from the developers web site - we need to get rid of publishers and retailers.
No software developer should hand over any code they write to some company in return for a salary. They should be selling it themselves.
And taking the specific example you've given here, whose site would that be - the ensemble, whose individual make up is likely to change over years, or the individual musicians who form it?
I also suspect that the history of shopping points in the other direction - that rather than going to 5 different sites, Walmart, Amazon and the App Store and Bandcamp are the model people want.
The Kindle won because of the Amazon integration, rather than first going to a site then downloading a file, then loading that onto your e-reader. Nope - just search book title, click, read,
For some people it pays to buck the trend - there are plenty of artisan bakers and chocolatiers out there.
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From: Wendy (Jan 16 2013, at 20:53)
I live in Nashville and your point of selling your own music is a very good one. I really do not know why more of my friends in the music business do not use their web sites to sell their CDs. They take them to the live shows and sell them on folding tables at the door - but not on their sites. I am going to make a bigger effort to convince them and quote you on it. Thanks!
Wendy
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