notes - archives - march 2005

3.1.05
So the record company idiots think that we've all been suckered into buying online music now and it's time to raise the prices. Apple's Steve Jobs, whose iTunes music store is responsible for 65% of all legal music downloads, disagrees vehemently, and he's right to do so. The record execs think that $.99 for a song is underpriced, and they're saying they only agreed to it as a way to sucker people in to legal downloading.

In point of fact, $.99 is already too high, especially for compressed music that we get without benefit of packaging or hard media backup. The only people who buy it are people who are too stupid to know that the compressed songs are nowhere near as high quality as the songs they get on a CD (or who just don't care) or people like me who love music and are avid CD buyers but don't want to pay $9 for an EP with three or four songs on it (singles and EPs that aren't available in CD form are another category of songs that I will buy on iTunes).

If the record industry wants to keep people like me buying stuff from iTunes, they need to lower prices by at least $.20 (or bare minimum keep them at the price levels that are at now), make it easy for me to download artwork and liner notes when I buy an album online, and sell me uncompressed versions of the songs so I can make a high-quality backup to CD. To get the massive numbers of people who are still downloading stuff for free still, they need to lower prices even further to below $.50 per song (probably somewhere in the range of $.30-$.40 would do it) to make it so inexpensive to do things legally that a significant number of people who otherwise would never legally download songs or buy CDs will be convinced that the risk of illegal file trading isn't worth it anymore (you're not going to stop this practice, but I believe it is possible to bring a good number of people back from the dark side with the right price points and ownership/rights model).

If you morons raise prices, not only will you permanently lose the people who are still downloading stuff illegally forever, you'll also likely lose a lot of us who are only downloading things legally now (many of whom will go back to using file trading sites to get those hard-to-find tracks and none of whom will ever again buy an album they can get in the stores). It was the right move to listen to Jobs and stock the iTunes store with millions of songs; you should continue listening to him, because he's a very smart man who apparently knows more about your business and your customer base than you do.

3.2.05
New CDs yesterday, LCD Soundsystem's eponymous debut and the Doves' Some Cities. I also wanted to pick up Iron and Wine's Woman King, but the guy behind the counter said they'd sold out of it the day before (why they couldn't get a few more copies delivered to them I didn't bother to ask). I guess that gives me something to look forward to next week.

Anyway, I haven't listened to either of them much, so the only thing I can say about them so far is that LCD Soundsystem sounds like the album the Rapture or the Faint really wanted to make, and the Doves' Some Cities sounds like...well, just like you'd expect the Doves to sound. I'm still undecided about this band——I got their last one, The Last Broadcast, because I was bored and there was nothing else new out (which is pretty much the same reason I bought this latest one), and while I didn't dislike it, it didn't really make a strong impression on me (which is pretty much how I feel about this one so far). Still, these two releases ought to tide me over til the flood of releases that starts later this month.

3.3.05
Single of the year so far: LCD Soundsystem's "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House". It's so good that even the appalling lack of cowbell——the short solo in the middle doesn't quite cut it for me——doesn't detract at all from its greatness.

3.4.05
I noticed that a new Postal Service remix was released on iTunes this week, and while I didn't end up buying it, it did get me curious enough about other odds and ends that might be on iTunes that I ended up with four other Postal Service tracks in my shopping cart: a cover of Phil Collins' "Against All Odds", a b-side from the "Such Great Heights" single called "There's Never Enough Time", a cover of the Flaming Lips' "Suddenly Everything Has Changed", and the only really new original song from the band, "Be Still My Heart".

The two covers are just curiosities (and the Phil Collins is definitely more curious than the Flaming Lips), and the b-side is okay, but "Be Still My Heart" leaves me hoping that the band——a side project from members of Dntel and Death Cab for Cutie——are working on more material for a sophomore release. This song is not quite good enough to have made the cut for the first record (even though I think it was written recently, long after those sessions had ended), but it's a nice warm-up for the band members to get back in tune with the Postal Service Sound.

3.7.05
Robyn Hitchcock really is a genius. I just wanted to say that in case you'd forgotten.

3.8.05
I still maintain that Disintegration is the Cure's best record, but man, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me has a lot of really great stuff, too. Save a few of those songs for b-sides and it would be a lot harder to choose between the two.

3.9.05
New goodies up on iTunes yesterday from Wilco, the A Ghost is Born Tour EP. It predictably features three live versions of songs from their most recent album, but it also includes two b-sides, "Panthers" and "Kicking Television". I haven't listened to it much yet, but I'm going to recommmend it to you anyway because it would be nearly impossible for this band to release something not worth owning.

3.10.05
It's hilarious to me to read quotes from other companies who make flash-based music players about Apple's new iPod shuffle, which sells for $99 and is the size of a pack of gum. First they say that Apple's new product will be good for the entire market because it will bring more attention to all flash-based players, and then they go on to comment on how poorly they think the iPod shuffle will do because their marketing studies have shown that consumers don't like music players without screen-based interfaces (with the iPod shuffle, there are three choices: play, shuffle, and off).

Right, guys. We totally believe you. You know that the shuffle is going to come in and dominate that market segment, just like every other type of iPod has dominated its market segement, and just like iTunes has dominated the world of legal music downloading. You can put on a brave face all you want, but we know you're really running scared.

3.11.05
It's weird how much Lyle Lovett sounds like Rufus Wainwright on his cover of "Moritat" (better known as "Mac the Knife"). I know Lovett is good at that whole big band thing, as evidenced by his work on the brilliant Lyle Lovett and His Large Band, but Rufus is the pop king of showtunes, and on "Moritat" Lovett does just as good a job as Rufus would have.

3.14.05
Crap. I just found out that the Wilco tracks I bought off iTunes last week are available as a free download off their web site if you own A Ghost Is Born, which of course I do. Wish that had been made a little clearer before I spent $4.49 on them...

3.15.05
Sometime late last year, when the Pitchfork staff started singing the praises of The Go! Team's Thunder, Lightning, Strike, I listened to some clips of it online and put on my things-to-buy list (that is, if my local record store ever got smart enough to put in stock). Every couple of weeks, I've dutifully searched the racks for it, and come away empty-handed every time.

Usually when this happens, I reach a breaking point and just order it from Amazon, where, as long as I order enough stuff to get free shipping on the order, it really doesn't cost much more than it would if I bought it at the independent record store, and I finally reached that point with Thunder, Lightning, Strike last week. However, when I looked up the item on Amazon, I discovered that it was only available as an import for more than $25.00, which is way more than I want to pay for a record with 11 songs that average 3 minutes apiece.

So I went back to where I'd heard the clips of the album when I first got interested in the band: the iTunes music store. The iTunes price: $9.99 for the whole album. I have long resisted buying whole albums from iTunes, because I like having a high-quality hard copy of the songs I put on my iPod, but in this case, with the import price for the CD being so high and no immediate domestic availability, it just made sense. So I pushed the button and finally downloaded my first complete album from iTunes (my previous purchases had been confined to singles, EPs, and rarities).

Haven't listened to it much, but I like what I'm hearing so far——the songs deliver on what the clips promised. It's hard to pin them down——depending on the song, they can sound like anyone from the Avalanches to Belle & Sebastian to Manitoba to the Ravonettes to Le Tigre, only more uniformly chipper than any of those groups. And there's even a little Sonic Youth and New Order thrown in for good measure. The album is more instrumental than I thought it would be, but there are plenty of layers and the songs don't last that long, so it holds my attention (I'm a total sucker for lyrics; bands with an instrumental focus generally don't do it for me, although there are a few notable exceptions, such as Godspeed You Black Emperor!, the previously mentioned Avalances, and early material from Broken Social Scene and Love Tractor). I'm not sure if they're fully worthy of the heaps of praise piled on them by the indie music press, but the Go! Team are definitely a band to watch. Let's hope they get a domestic deal in place before their next release.

3.16.05
Watched 15 minutes of American Idol last night out of sheer boredom (I take morbid glee in watching the first few weeks of the show, where they focus on all the terrible performances during the auditions, but once they start with the actual singing and voting process, I don't even think twice about it). There is no doubt in my mind that this whole thing is fixed: singers were praised or trashed with complete disregard for the actual quality of their performances. But I guess that just makes it as "real" as the rest of reality tv.

3.17.05
I've been listening to the Go! Team's Thunder, Lightning, Strike pretty much nonstop since I purchased it earlier this week. Although I'm superaddicted right now, this isn't an addiction like Modest Mouse's The Moon and Antarctica or Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, two other discs that it took months for me to pull myself away from; Thunder isn't a disc that can change the world. But that doesn't mean it's not going to keep me entertained for a while longer——at least until next week when the new Decemberists record comes out.

3.18.05
To the fuckheads who stole the Decemberists gear trailer on the eve of their national tour to support their new record: you better give it back quickly, or believe me, Colin Meloy's rabid fans will make sure that you die a slow and painful death, most likely at the hands of evil-hearted pirates. Seriously, you don't want to mess with these people.

3.21.05
I got four new CDs on Friday: The Kills' No Wow, The Evens' self-titled debut, Key from Son, Ambulance, and the highlight of the group so far, Iron and Wine's Woman King EP. Iron and Wine (otherwise known as Sam Beam) continues to astound; I don't know if I've even heard a bad song from him, much less a bad collection of songs, and that includes b-sides, etc. This is more electric than his previous offerings, recorded with the same producer that did last year's brilliant Our Endless Numbered Days, which was itself a move towards a cleaner sound (as opposed to the lo-fi pops and hisses of his first few releases).

The Kills is probably my next favorite of these discs after one weekened together, although they sound a little too much like Ms. Polly Jean Harvey for me to get too excited about them. Son, Ambulance is a Saddle Creek artist who I've always wanted to hear more of after buying the split EP they did with Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes, and I just happened to notice Key in stock on Friday and impulsively picked it up. It's not as good as I would have hoped, but I'm going to give it a few more listens to grow on me. The Evens is the new band for Ian MacKaye of Fugazi fame, and I bought it mostly on the recommendation of one of the Pitchfork reviewers. There's some interesting stuff on it, but I'm not overly impressed; perhaps it would have helped if I was a Fugazi fanatic who already revered MacKaye as a god.

Iron and Wine is solidly on my playlist, but the other three had better hurry up and make a stronger impression, because we've got the Decemberists on tap this week and Beck next. Their window of opportunity is closing, and soon they'll be out of sight, out of mind.

3.22.05
Dear Sony,

I'm ready to give you money for Fiona Apple's new album, Extraordinary Machine, which was completed almost two years ago and which had a release date that was revised monthly until you indefinitely shelved it in January of this year. But you won't let me——as demonstrated by Danger Mouse's seminal mash-up The Grey Album, which blended Jay-Z's The Black Album with the Beatle's White Album, or Wilco's infamous Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which their original record company would have rather taken a guaranteed loss on than bother to release it, you and the other big music conglomerates just don't understand how to serve your customers. You don't get what the lords of cable learned many years ago: you can still make good profits off of niche markets, and every now and then you'll make tons and tons off a surprise hit. Not every record has to go gold or platinum; not every artist has to be on TRL to make you money.

But since you're apparently too stupid to realize this, I've gotten tired of waiting patiently, tired of hoping against hope that you'll do the right thing and give Fiona's fans what they want. So, when the opportunity arose to download the new record, I didn't hesitate, despite my normal stance of only obtaining music through legal downloads or buying CDs. I promise you, if you release this CD legally, I will be first in line to buy a copy. But until then, I'm going to pursue the only option you've left open to me, and I'm going to encourage others to do the same.

Much love,

A Devoted Fan and Passionate Consumer of Music

3.23.05
Got the Decemberists' Picaresque and Bloc Party's Silent Alarm yesterday. Picaresque sounds pretty good, but I'm not sure if it's as good as their first two——the production by Death Cab's Chris Walla seems a little too slick for this band——but I'm sure it will improve the more I listen to it. Bloc Party is one of those British Next Big Things that we seemed to get every few months, and while Silent Alarm is okay, I'm not quite sure what all the fuss is about. I couldn't recommend it at this point, but I've also only listened to it once in the background, so I need to give it a serious listen before I pass judgment.

3.24.05
Nine Inch Nails has posted "The Hand That Feeds", the first single from their upcoming album, on iTunes, and listening to the clip, you can't help but wonder if their time has passed. I was (and I guess I still am) a huge NIN fan, but this single sounds too much like all the bands that have ripped them off during their extended absences. Trent Reznor's voice still stands out, but I just don't know if that's going to be enough to lift them above the crowd of pale imitators who have sprung up and made industrial alt-rock into the same kind of bland cliche that Creed and Third Eye Blind made regular alternative rock into. I want to hear more, but the song doesn't make me optimistic about our chances of getting another brilliant record out of Reznor. Then again, the preview single from the Fragile was one of the most boring songs on that double disc, while the rest of it contained some of his best work, so I guess there's still hope.

3.25.05
"Extraordinary Machine", the title cut from Fiona Apple's unreleased latest album, is the best song Rufus Wainwright never recorded.

3.28.05
And on a similar note: "On the Bus Mall", from the Decemberists' Picaresque, is the best song Morrissey never recorded.

3.29.05
My current iPod playlist has about 100 songs, 6 of which are the tracks from the new Iron and Wine, Woman King. I really like all the songs on this record (I really like everything that Sam Beam has ever released), but for some reason the iPod doesn't——it hardly ever plays tracks from this disc. All except "Evening on the Ground (Lilith's Song)"——this one it seems to invariably play within the first 20 songs. Oh well——the iPod wants what it wants.

3.30.05
Normally, I share an office with two other people, and I have a headphones-only policy for music (including my own). But one of my team members left a couple of months ago and I still have not hired someone to take his place, and the other has been off-site all this week for training, so I've had the whole place to myself. And even though I don't really mind wearing headphones, and even though the speakers on my office computer are pretty crappy, I've still enjoyed hooking the iPod up and listening to music unfettered this week. I can get up, walk around, talk to myself, bounce a ball off the wall, and engage in all the thinking-out-loud habits that I haven't been able to indulge in since I started working in such a cramped space, all the while enjoying my music, which also helps to clear my mind when I'm working on a difficult piece of code.

It's nothing like CO2, where we had a real sound system, lots of room to wander around in, and plenty of diversions to distract our brains for a few minutes, but having a relatively private space where I can play my music out loud reminds me of all the better physical spaces I've worked in, and makes me realize just how deadening it can be to have to spend the workday in a small windowless box. Hopefully this will all be remedied in a year or two, when they build a new facility for us where I'll have my own office with a window, but until then, I'm just going to have to force myself to take more walks outside and not focus so much on the piles of work on my desk.

3.31.05
I Heart Fiona. Come on, Sony, where's the love?