Music Labels Working On Digital Album Format 250
Nerdfest writes to mention that just weeks after Apple announced their new "Cocktail" digital album project, the four big record companies are moving forward with their own project dubbed "CMX." The new digital album will feature songs, lyrics, videos, liner notes, and artwork. "However, this may be of little interest if CMX isn't compatible with iTunes, the default music software for iPods, iPhones and Apple computers. Whereas labels are eager to resuscitate the album format in an age of singles, Apple is concerned with selling hardware, including a tablet computer rumored to be launching this fall. The major labels plan to launch CMX, which is just a working title for the format, in November. It will reportedly be 'soft-launched' with a few select releases."
And another failure... (Score:5, Insightful)
Their business model is dying, and again they're trying to come up with ways to corner a market they've already lost, with a format that will fail.
A few predictions (Score:5, Insightful)
2) CMX will be used to facilitate unwanted bundling (i.e. without offering singles)
3) CMX will be patent riddled
4) CMX will be designed to exclude FOSS
let them go for it (Score:4, Insightful)
it won't really matter. if there's one thing the labels can be relied upon to do, it's to provide something that people don't want.
Still failing to grasp their audience (Score:5, Insightful)
Several colleagues of mine pointed me to this story and I just have to say: the labels - again - still don't get it, and they apparently never will.
I can understand why some artists create full length works. Few can argue that an album like Pink Floyd's "The Wall" or The Beatles' "Abbey Road" work very well as complete pieces. The reality is: how many current artists are making albums that consistent? I can think of only three that actually make the cut for me: Queens of the Stone Age, The Mars Volta and until lately Nine Inch Nails. With only that last example, their audiences are not earning them in the tens of millions in sales. The only artists which are are the artists which are responsible for this massive audience shift away from album purchases!
Britney Spears is the veritable poster-child for why albums are failing: even if you are a die-hard fan, you really only want two songs, at most perhaps five, from any of her full length albums. That says: you don't want to spend $15 - $20 for a complete CD / $9.99 per digital album download. You prefer to purchase individual tracks. (That and: you'd probably still prefer they cost around $0.49)
On the other hand, if their audience are "classic rock fans", I still don't see the point. If you're a Led Zeppelin fan, you likely already have all the remastered reissues and re-re-re-issues you care to spend any money on in the first place. (And the Beatles re-re-re-re-masters are coming out imminently as well, marking something like the eighth time those have been re-issued of re-packaged in one way or another.)
That well has run dry. Why they don't face this fact is confusing.
I know that individual tracks aren't going away, and I know that digital sales on their own aren't necessarily resulting in booming profits for any of these labels, but my point is: as someone who has been a voracious consumer of music since 1979, I see utterly no legitimate business case for this "new" format, and it baffles me completely that any major label would seriously consider this as the saviour of their industry.
I would have been far more excited to hear that they decided on a $0.40 per single purchase price for new artists - big marketing campaign or not - rather than this ridiculous additional format. That or that they finally decided to give the artists more of a cut of the digital download price, since printing, shipping and manufacturing costs are of course greatly reduced for any digital download format. (Not saying it doesn't still take a creative team to create artwork, but there is no shipping, and no printing involved.)
I've already made a few wagers: I give this two and a half years at best before we see an unsurprising news story claiming that this did not significantly improve any digital music sales for anyone.
What a waste of money already. They still have a full year before they even release the first one.
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What about CD? (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't the venerable Compact Disc a "digital album format" already? That's why it doesn't degrade with repeated playback, after all.
Re:Just a new complication. (Score:4, Insightful)
This format won't add anything new to the software world, it's just a new complication. There's absolutely nothing new or exciting about this format, we can get the same effect with folders and multiple files -- or just cramming a few files together and splitting them apart when needed.
While I agree in principle with what you say, it's actually much easier than that. My crappy Winamp will auto-tag songs based on a lossy hash, grab the album cover art from some mysterious server, and display some sort of music website with the latest news about the artist, etc. You can install a free plugin that downloads the lyrics to the song, if you want, or you could get off your lazy ass and just Google it.
What these people don't seem to understand about albums is that they were a very physical thing (yes, past tense). You touched it on the shelf at the record store, turned it over to see if you knew any of the songs, then had a little (or big for vinyl) booklet to browse too.
When you put the album in your music playing device, you made a conscious decision to listen to at least a few songs from it. Nobody switched out albums like crazy playing one song after the other. Any sort of "digital album" will necessarily have that functionality, negating the whole album concept. Those who would listen to all the songs would just buy them individually, and those who would not won't.
Unless, they intend on killing the single by forcing albums down our throat. Helllooo, bittorrent...
Maybe they should try MP3? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Still failing to grasp their audience (Score:5, Insightful)
Britney Spears is the veritable poster-child for why albums are failing: even if you are a die-hard fan, you really only want two songs, at most perhaps five, from any of her full length albums.
You've got that right, except for the way you seem to be placing blame at Britney Spears' feet.
The greatest "rock albums" out there are almost always wholly written and created by the bands themselves, bands with the creativity and experience necessary to be good songwriters as well as good performers.
But BS is a singer, not a musician. She was created by the music labels as a pretty face and voice to sell albums, and they used a handful of good singles written by other people to sell entire albums of songs.
This is and has been the music labels' modus operandi for decades, because it works and it's more reliable -- it's easier to find a good singer who's hot than a good singer who's hot and can write and play good songs.
Moreover, creating a complete album crafted as a whole is a time-consuming endeavor which should not be pursued by the faint of heart. It's difficult and risky. And since it requires an actual attention span to appreciate, its appeal is likewise much more limited.
The labels have been promoting the singles-based emphasis ever since they first came into existence, because that's how songs used to be recorded. The album is a much more recent invention. Small surprise they're having trouble adapting to it.
In my opinion, the labels would be better off spending time finding ways to make more money with singles than diddling around with online albums.
Re:A few predictions (Score:5, Insightful)
My Guess:
CMX will require using specific Windows software (5 years later a Mac version will be released), and will require a mandatory 30+ second anti-piracy video before you can play a song.
Perhaps I am wrong. I mean I would not mind a file format that allowed album artwork, lyrics, and liner notes to be stored in a standardized way along with all the songs of a single album, as long as individual songs can still be extracted.
But why bother? The iTunes extentions to the aac format allow album art, all the information from liner notes, lyrics (although not synchronized lyrics AFAIK), and more to be embeded in a song. Heck, it even supports synchronized images to be muxed in along with the audio, and chapter marks to be inserted.
So I see no advantage to such a system over a zip file of all the songs of the album in AAC format, unless the whole purpose is to make albums into a branded experience.
My guess is that the format is really just a way to bundle the autoplay executable, and other "extended extras" found on the data track of modern audio CDs.
Re:Still failing to grasp their audience (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that this is out of touch. It's also out of touch in a revealing way. The execs are seeking to "add back" to the digital album the things they were used to from the physical album. But the new generation of music listeners have no experience with the old album. To them, the band's "art" is their website. The band's videos (from concerts and so on) are either on the website or on youtube.
I do think there's more to the album than the possibility for theme. I think bands work better when work is focused on creating something longer than a single track. I think the stress of limited studio time to create an LP has enabled some bands to do good work. But this doesn't mean that the album of this century will be like the one of last century.
From a group that said... (Score:5, Insightful)
Coming from the group that just recently announced their paying customers should not expected DRM encumbered music already paid for to work indefinitely, their follow up announcement of yet another new format surely isn't inspiring any confidence.
Re:mp3 does this already (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, that. Whenever I rip a CD to MP3 I spend some time *adding* art and crap like that (genre, year, etc...) so it feels more like an album than just a file. Everyone sees the world through different eyes I suppose.
But yes you're right, I've been getting by with MP3 just fine for quite some time now. For those who *really* want to go all out and get the liner notes, lyrics, front and back cover artwork, etc, a collection of properly named jpegs and a music player that knows what it's doing will fill that need nicely. However, a new dominant format ensures that you will yet again have to purchase the White Album, which translates to money in the pockets of the recording companies. Is it any wonder they have their best eggheads on the job?
Don't support the middlemen. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with supporting an effort like this is that 90% of your payment goes to middlemen. Artists need to stop making the deal with the devil for promotion, and increasingly they don't have to. Set up your own online store (not hard) or find an artist friendly aggregated store that gives the vast majority of the income to the artist, charging a small percentage for the service (not more than 20%!)
I believe there is an excellent business model to be had by setting up an artist friendly website. The trick would be to get a few major artists onboard for this effort in the beginning to attract attention. If I had time and VC capital, I'd run of and do this today.
What is needed is a mass abandonment of the ASCAP/BMI regime, so that it will collapse. How much of your 99 cent purchase at the itunes store goes to the artist, when the music is being licensed to the itunes store through traditional record companies? Very little, from what I have read. pennies on the buck. Itunes is part of the problem.
This whole thing has gone on far too long. Artists who are -good- should be able to stand on their own without the help of the major record companies, with all the tools that are available to the artist directly these days.
The record companies are similar to film companies in that they will obfuscate the profit sheets as much as possible to show a loss. That is why most major film talent now negotiates income percentage on the front end gross as opposed to the back end net, in addition to their fixed salary. The net income from any given film is proving increasingly elusive, if you ask the accounting department at the studio.
the one thing that can prove me wrong is if someone can show me that selling your music the traditional way is still more profitable than going it on your own, due to the sheer quantity of sales.
Destined to fail (Score:3, Insightful)
The world has moved on, yet the music industry once again demonstrates it hasn't figured this basic fact out yet.
While we /.'ers are all worked up about possible DRM, most of the world doesn't seem to care if it's done right. However I'm certain this format - with or without DRM - will live for a short period on life support, and then will quietly be allowed to die at a young age without a whimper. Nowadays most people just don't care about album liner notes, lyrics, and the like. Heck, even back when I was buying vinyl albums, I didn't care much. I might look at liner notes once... but usually I'd just glance at them while I was pulling the album out of its sleeve. I just wanted to hear the songs then, and that's all most people want from their music purchases now.
Good Idea, will be screwed up horribly (Score:2, Insightful)
In this idea's simplest form, it can be a tar file which has to follow certain rules about what goes into it and its location. Think about how on a Unix system,
A properly done CMX would have top level directories like
Of course, this is the RIAA we're talking, so it won't be.
Re:A few predictions (Score:1, Insightful)
AAC isn't open, and neither is iTunes. Not everyone has, or even wants an iPod. Amazingly, if the labels make this an open format, it will be a significant improvement. Of course, the odds are against it.
Re:And another failure... (Score:5, Insightful)
If piracy were the problem, they wouldn't be actively trying to move back to album sales now would they? People can pirate whole albums just as easily as they can single songs, so what makes you think this isn't about their failed business model of selling a CD 80% full of crap to people who wanted one mediocre, dynamically compressed one-hit wonder? Technology allowed people to avoid THAT SHIT, not paying in general.
Re:And another failure... (Score:5, Insightful)
From RIAA's Perspective: If it doesn't have DRM, what's the point?
From the Consumer's Perspective: If it has DRM, what's the point?
"Forget WAV, MP3 and M4A - major labels have something new in mind, and it's called CMX."
As a side note, TFA seems to be confused between codecs and containers.
Re:And another failure... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it's failing.
They make their money off of recording and distribution. It used to cost lots of cash to make a decent recording- which is what allowed them to be the "gatekeepers" for Pop Culture.
Unfortunately for them, the recording equivalent of the Gutenberg Press has come along and they can't make the cash the once could. Nor can they just jam stuff down people's throats. Sure, people figured out how "to get around paying"- but a good portion of the people out there aren't buying or listening. They listen to people that have absolutely NOTHING to do with those businesses trying to make themselves relevant via "digital albums". If they can somehow remember what put them in the role and work within what has now come to pass for them and everyone else, they might keep their model going a while longer.
I honestly don't think they will manage it.
Re:And another failure... (Score:5, Insightful)
Get around paying?
Check out Apple's earnings from iTunes some time.
People are choosing to buy the tunes they like, (and occasionally the Albums they like), but not the usual trash foisted on them to fill the album.
Music sales are doing well.
Paying 15 bucks for 2 good songs and 9 garbage songs is what is failing.
The DRM issue is is a serious one, just as the GP mentioned. The ability to repossess your music purchases at any time in the future is theft, pure and simple.
Buggy whips were doing well for a hundred years too.
Re:mp3 does this already (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, gee, how dare we not get the newest shiny thing Apple shits into our hands with mommy and daddy's money like you kids? I guess we all ought to shut up because we're fucking adults who work for our money and might like to save some of it.
The album used to be great.... (Score:3, Insightful)
There used to be this thing called the concept album. And, in order to understand a song, you had to hear it in the context of the album. When concept albums were out, 80% of the tracks on the album were actually good. Now, 20% of the tracks are good and 80% are crap, and most albums don't have a cohesive theme of any kind.
Why would anyone want to buy an album these days?
It's not the model that needs to change. It's the content.
People keep screaming we need a new Nirvana to break out of this rut music is in. We DON'T need a new Nirvana. We need a new Beatles and Beach Boys.
Re:Still failing to grasp their audience (Score:3, Insightful)
it's easier to find a good singer who's hot than a good singer who's hot and can write and play good songs.
It's also the kind of mentality where a singer needs to be hot to sell anything which is doing a serious disservice to music in general.
Re:Just Keep Making CDs (Score:4, Insightful)
That's LAME! Or, actually, in this case it's not.
Re:The album used to be great.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:mp3 does this already (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think so. Apple has, in their infinite wisdom, discontinued their largest capacity iPod, the 160GB iPod Classic. I guess it wasn't skinny enough to match the wraithlike dimensions of Apple's CEO, but I wanted something that would take all of my music collection with room for it to grow. I was only just in time when I scored my iPod.
Re:Don't support the middlemen. (Score:3, Insightful)
What's The Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can think of only three that actually make the cut for me
And at this point your entire argument falls to pieces. Just because you personally can think of only three that, in your opinion, make the cut for you, means nothing. Maybe your musical tastes are rather limited? The music industry caters for a far wider market than you personally. If they cannot sell an idea to you, that does not mean the idea has absolutely no value.
And your Britney analysis is like 5 years out of date. Are you sure you're well placed to be advising the music industry on marketing?
it baffles me completely that any major label would seriously consider this as the saviour of their industry.
I must have missed this in news article. Where is anyone claiming this? Oh, they aren't.
As far as I can see, this is the music industry providing "Value Added" content that everyone is always saying they need to do in order to convince people to actually pay for things. This is them providing an electronic equivalent of the record sleeve that many actually miss. What exactly is the problem with this??
Re:And another failure... (Score:3, Insightful)
Paying 15 bucks for 2 good songs and 9 garbage songs is what is failing.
I still don't understand this argument. I've never bought an album with more than one or two songs on it that I didn't like, and all of the music I own is in complete albums except for a couple of EPs (I don't have any pirated music). Who are these bands which release two good songs and nine crap ones on an album? If less than 20% of a band's output is worth listening to, they seem less deserving of money than bands that can produce entire albums full of good music.