Michael Fremer podcast: Wow!!!!
- Thread starter Andre Marc
- Start date
Amazon recently acknowledged that some of these "CD on demand" are derived from mp3 sources. Enjoy.
No worries, Andre. I chuckled myself and I knew what you meant.
Tom
BTW, I think the fans of "new" country music, are quite different than the fans of classic country.
I myself love George Jones, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, etc. I find nothing appealing
about the new breed.
Never heard that. And quite frankly it makes no sense. Please provide a link for reference. That is a rather big accusation.
Last week one of my cohorts who also runs a label had an email exchange with our distributor regarding the suspect sound quality of Amazon's cd on demand program. As I recall (and the reason I mentioned it) Amazon indicated that there have been instances where the cd-rs were derived from mp3 sources.
I should be able to get the info for you on Monday and cite it.
I should be able to get the info for you on Monday and cite it.
Alan, with all due respect, some of your points are pretty sensational and fantastical.
First, no one forces the record companies to sign as many acts as they do. Their rosters swelled to unsustainable levels.
Secondly, there is nothing new about artistically and critically acclaimed acts who were very influential selling small numbers. My collection
is littered with albums by artists who did not sell didley squat but are talked about as deities.
I personally have not seen CDs sold in supermarkets here. But maybe others have.
Here is a good one for you, I just saw an interview with Scott Weiland who said rock fans stopped buying new albums but
country fans are buying them in huge numbers.
The punch line? The country fans are too stupid work their computers LOL.
Sensational and fantastical... or possibly just international?
I think we're saying the same thing from different sides. The music business is run by idiots who should not be allowed to play with crayons without supervision. Which means not only does it repeat the mistakes of the past, but introduces its own mistakes at every opportunity.
The 'CDs in supermarkets' thing may be uniquely UK-based, although I did read somewhere that one of the biggest suppliers of CDs in the American retail space (by volume) was Wal-Mart.
There is a fascinating book written by Graham Jones (a former UK record rep) called 'Last Shop Standing' (it's recently been made into a well-respected documentary). Reps delivering records and CDs to independent record stores has been replaced almost entirely by online ordering, so he took his last rep's tour of the country to document the state of the UK record shops.
One of the things he found time and again was that independent record shops were getting so little contact from the majors, and when they could get chart material the trade prices and delivery dates they were receiving were so bad, that they were buying the top five chart discs from nearby supermarkets during the week for weekend trade. That's how bent out of shape the record companies have become - not bothering to supply the hundreds of specialists who will support and grow your business, but going with a supermarket chain because it's one big order!
Record companies are similarly functionally insane to sign up so many acts and then just as quickly leave them entirely unsupported. They are insane on stilts to find a good, potentially long-legged band, promote the first album like crazy and then forget the band exists by the time the second album comes around. That's a relatively new trend - if the people in charge of record companies today were in charge of record companies in the 1960s, the Beatles would have been handed over to Parlophone's Z-List A&R team about the time of Beatles For Sale, and that would have been the end of them.
But the net result is the same. If the music biz labels are currently spending a fortune promoting endless one-hit wonders, with little conception and almost no support of artist development, and no guarantee that one-hit wonder will be a one-hit wonder, then the music business is throwing money away. The difference between past and present performance was there were always big hitter acts to help pay for the failed one-hit wonders in the past. Now there aren't so many (because they aren't developing acts as much). It's like spread betting, but only on half the horses in a horse race.
Point still is that more LPs are probably sold through indie and online retailers like the Big 3 than through major retailers.
Can't remember the last time saw a CD in a supermarket
But for example, magazines pay an additional fee to be placed on the shelves or the checkout line.
Can't remember the last time saw a CD in a supermarket
Lots of shops (supermarkets, drugstores,etc.) sell CD/DVD/Blu-ray up in Canada. They're like candy bars.....they're everywhere. They don't sell them in any volume and what they have is crap, but still. Ahhh...magazines and the Retail Display Allowance. I can tell you stories about that. Was in the publishing business at the newsstand circulation level in marketing for 25 years.
Is that line copyrighted or can I use that sometime?
Have it with my blessing. But I will probably use it again, when I'm not channeling Malcolm Tucker.
Andre:
As promised here in the information:
http://www.dailyrindblog.com/watch-space-amazon-disc-demand/
This comes from The Orchard. They are one of the largest digital aggregators and supply Amazon with mp3s for their digital store.
Note the following:
"What exactly is Amazon Disc on Demand?
Amazon Disc on Demand uses the digital files that are delivered for the Amazon MP3 store to print a CD or DVD on demand for customers who order a physical copy. The transaction counts as a digital sale, but results in a physical copy."
Read the article carefully and take special note of the comments at the end of the article.
It would appear that, at least in certain cases, Amazon's CD on demand program is sourced from mp3.
Ken Golden
As promised here in the information:
http://www.dailyrindblog.com/watch-space-amazon-disc-demand/
This comes from The Orchard. They are one of the largest digital aggregators and supply Amazon with mp3s for their digital store.
Note the following:
"What exactly is Amazon Disc on Demand?
Amazon Disc on Demand uses the digital files that are delivered for the Amazon MP3 store to print a CD or DVD on demand for customers who order a physical copy. The transaction counts as a digital sale, but results in a physical copy."
Read the article carefully and take special note of the comments at the end of the article.
It would appear that, at least in certain cases, Amazon's CD on demand program is sourced from mp3.
Ken Golden
Alan, informative as always, and entertaining!
It may be true about Wal Mart, but their selection runs thin. It does boggle the mind that there is no more HMV, Tower Records, or Boarders. A reality check for sure. Tower
was my second home. Used to love the midnight CD releases.
Agree, there is zero artist development. That is why many artists now just produce their own music, sell them at shows, or direct
from their websites. Living in the moment and screw the future is something that has been handed down by the financial services
industry. Their scummy moral ways have seeped into many aspects of society and business.
The one form of revenue today that was not nearly as available in the past is endorsement deals. Many performers
are handing over music for pretty darn big pay days for commercial use, or for use in television shows. The Black Keys
have made more dough from that car commercial their song is featured in than from their last two albums combined.
Bands like the The Who held out for 30 years because they had the revenue from record sales and touring.
Thank you Ken. I will read this.
FYI, in the two instances I bought CD-R on demand, I believe the discs came directly from the labels.
I will go back and check. Again, thanks for link.
Wow! You might have bought what you thought was a RBCD and got a copy of an MP3.
De nada.
Amazon's on demand discs are manufactured by Amazon. No label supplies Amazon with CD-Rs. Doesn't make any sense. I've been asked numerous times to participate in Amazon's program and I continue to decline. I've seen too many comments that the overall quality is poor. Consumers typically don't read the fine print and expect a factory pressed CD and are disappointed when something else arrives.
In a sense its a good program because it allows catalog that is on the cusp of going out of print to be still be available but at the same time if there was real demand the labels would keep them in print. The real reason behind the program is so that Amazon would not have to inventory physical product.
Is that line copyrighted or can I use that sometime?
That was pretty funny. It reminds me of what a friend of mine told me last week when he was talking about the futility of trying to design and build 'idiot proof' products. He said it was impossible because idiots have evolved and they always remain one step ahead of you when you think you have designed something they just couldn't possibly screw-up.
The two discs I bought were VERY obscure world music titles that were getting over a $100 from third party sellers. We are taking
really obscure, low run.
So I went for it. I am going to try to plot a spectrum and see if I can find evidence of lossy.
Here is a spectrum of one of the tracks from a CD-R on demand I bought:
It may very well be an mp3 CD-R burn. There seems to be nothing above 18.5 Khz, Hard to be definitive....but...
