Spotty

In a month that's seen the Spotify app adoption go through the roof, it's interesting to note the pluses and minuses attached to what initially seemed a benign and liberating phenomenon. Already noted by my friend, the Estimable Bass Player here, the main problem for us lucky, lucky (ish ) early UK adopters is the strange reverse psychology of ad funding that's so annoying as to drive users to the subscription button. In past weeks they've quite obviously employed the same psychologists who felled Pinochet using music. The intense irritation factor seems to have gone off the scale, wherein twenty minutes of aural balm can be scrubbed clean away by some (usually) self-voiced ad by an 'artist' who, even if you were ambivalent about them beforehand, you'll probably hate after you've heard their lousy promo. Sigh...
But following a 'talk' (read: propaganda speech) from their UK Sales Director at my old place of employment, pre-their attempt to stump up the cash to launch in the US (has anyone noticed how, like showbiz acts in the 60s and 70s, you can only claim success in new media if you've 'cracked the States?), several things became clear:
1) The plucky Swedes peddle the same 'we all love music' schtick. While whole books could (and are) written about the way this post iTunes pick and choose/everything all the time attitude devalues and corodes ideas of taste, individuality or worth. Being deliberately snarky about how competitors such as the (still wonderful) Last.fm are 'finished', highlighted the deficiencies of the model in terms of cultural worth. An app that allows a blanket fee to access millions of tracks while apeing their commercial download rivals' interface is akin to taking some great original ideas and squeezing revenue, rather than adding or furthering the industry of human happiness. Don't get me wrong, I use Spotify (esp at work) and it's a useful tool to share and point people at things they may have missed or love. But compare it to Last's genuinely peer-driven database which connects and recommends, or allows discussions and networks to be established. Charts? Stats?? New ways of approaching something which, in commercial terms began to look shaky ten years ago??!? No, Spotify just keeps on squeezing because , well, someone had to. Which is kinda grim...

2) Their attitude to artist rights is a tad 'swiss cheese', at least if you actually listen to any artist who's in the lucky position of owning their own rights, as opposed to letting their label handle them.

3) For 'deep' musicologists the database holds some real oddities, but also is as full of holes as it is surprises. And is it really helpful to put release dates as the date of reissue? No, it isn't.

In the end this is the test for Spotify. With little increase in take-up of subscriptions it appears that their model hangs on a knife edge. Wave free stuff at people and they won't thank you. They'll take it and leave as soon as something cleverer comes along. Too much too soon, maybe?

Where it's at

Garuda is currently back here, doing a little contract work. In fact what I'm doing is incredibly interesting. More to follow, as I'm attempting to engage with an online community in a way that all my time here never even got close to. And that includes the country music message board at Radio 2 ;-)
Basically the h2g2 site is a piece of wonderful anachronism from back in the day, founded by the marvellous Douglas Adams. Its denizens are rabid, passionate people who have held their ground, because a publicly funded corporation gave them the freedom to express themselves as harmlessly as possible. The result is like Wikipedia's rather odd uncle. I've yet to really find out how these people have the time or the motivation to keep what is essentially a volunteer run site going, but they do. And while it may LOOK like a weird peice of technological archaeology, it's really an example of a totally separate way of useing the web to talk and share. Tweeters, Facebookers and suchlike will scoff. Let 'em. This site has legs and following a planned relaunch could be destined for something amazing.
It's like a science experiment that got left in a jar and forgotten, the scientists returning a few years later to find that it's teeming with strange new lifeforms. More to follow...

iTunes 7 - Mind The Gaps

As previously mentioned, I've been a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to the full potential of how iTunes can take over your life. With my lovely Lacie hard drive rapidly filling up with nonsense I spent a large chunk of Friday night getting to grips with the new iTunes 7. I was, I admit, seduced by a colleague in the T&D dept at work showing me the swanky new album art display/interface thingy. The joy of seeing my albums displayed properly (and with rather nifty glossy reflections, natch) was too much to resist. What I didn't pay attention to was the issue of GAPS.
Already, last week, the word 'gaps' had entered the lingua franca of the big brains who know about such things and write blogs about Ruby Rails (or some such woman). Oh yes, iTunes 7. It's got gaps-aplenty.
For an old-timer the issue of metadata within the digital age is key. Frankly a 4x4 crappy reproduction of what we used to call 'sleeve art' is rubbish. I won't go on - just read this. It tells you all you need to know and more. For anyone with a background in the graphic arts this is distressing enough. (cf: my interview with God-king of 'sleeve art', Mr Roger Dean!) But add this to the need to KNOW who/when/what/why about the music I'm consuming and, were it not for my inherited knowledge attained by 40-odd years of listening, I'd be in the dark. There are analogies here in the visual arts. ie: what changes when we know the context within which a piece of art was created, and how does that affect our perception..blah, blah, yada yada...In other words, the old chestnuts.
Returning to iTunes 7; it sucks. After an hour of registering and running the consolidation process I had a motley connection of sleeve art examples, many of which were incorrect. Now, I know my tastes can tend to the (very slightly) arcane, but I was appalled at how Steve Jobs and his crew, within an hour, had made me feel like I'm just plain weird. No artwork for Led Zeppelin? (in fact it gave me a Dread Zeppelin sleeve 20 times) None for King Crimson. Wow...those are obscure. With Greatest Hits packages it gave me a different sleeve for each track (ie: Donovan) and as for tracks culled from free CDs...don't even go there. I was REMOVING more than it had found. And I'd put the success rate at about 10%.
So much for the so-called 'long tail'. If a mega-corporation can't do better, and seems to regard mainstream acts as too wilfully obscure (by dint of them just being OLD) then we're frankly fucked. Maybe the long tail is only long because of a lazy attitude to cultural heritage?
I tried resorting to Apple's new widget that sucks the sleeves of 'currently playing' tracks from Amazon. But in the face of 4000 albums I'm kinda guessing I may not have the time. Anyone out there got a better solution?
On top of this I found the fact that displaying the fancy 'hit parade' (as I'm calling it in my head) stops certain functionality on the keyboard; and the whole thing seems more intent in getting us all to consume 'video' and after 2 hours of fannying about I'd gone back to the old skool settings and wished I'd never bothered.
Harumph...

Toys R Us

A fallow period blogwise - mainly due to my brain (and fingers) being otherwise occupied with new recordings for my friends in Mexico City. Don't all rush over to Myspace, fans: nothing to show and tell quite yet! But I became well and truly lost in something-approximating-music due to the purchase of a new Boss loop station. Phew...
This combined with EBP's Korg Prophecy led me into murky (ie: GOOD) territory where I was stranded with few reference points. This could be the jolt I needed. watch this space...
Meanwhile, if anyone's going to this I'd be happy to meet up and talk rubbish over a drink or two. I shall be at the back, looking longingly at Fennesz on Friday night ;-)