Re: [microsound] Was: record industry is becoming the book business

[Store <store@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

--------------020709070908000606080309
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I think that Tim mentioned a major change in the way we listen to music, 
that's pretty good - though a bit provocative - described by his 
question, if we would throw away CDs if they were meant to be for single 
use, kind of... with the massive availabilty of interesting and free 
music through the net,  I guess we all know the phenomenon of rather 
streaming the tracks that are for example promoted through microsound 
list than to download and listen over and over. Music, as paperbacks in 
the literature biz, tends to become aural fastfood and I feel absolutely 
no shame about it, as there's so much sound not to miss, the time seems 
to be over for "THE ALBUM" or the one special songs that you listen to 
the whole day, music production has become a democratic way of 
communicating, rather emotions than intellectual issues, for which I'd 
still prefer the usual language. And as I wouldn't tend the have the 
same discussions over and over the whole day, I also dislike to listen 
to the same music twice - well,  unless the tracks are really 
outstanding, but that's the ame with good books - ..
However, there's another world of music, which is for me represented by 
the vinyl market, where the "hardware" itself delivers a gain of 
distinction and also gives wealth to the "software" represented, which 
means the music. Though I also  don't listen to the same record more 
than twice, I feel a much stronger binding between the music on vinyl 
that has come into my world  with a whole bunch of sensual impulses like 
artwork, that may even lead me to buy a record I don't even know the 
artist that made it. Most of these impulses are given up by CD 
producers. The bigger industry a&rs begin to discuss this lack and tend 
to wealth the CDs by adding more and more special artwork not be 
reproducable by CD pirates, but also serve the gain of distinction that 
most CDs have lost.
So there some day certainly may be CDs for 4 dollars on the airport for 
immediate use and to be thrown away afterwards, or chips to create a 
certain range of instant/random music, that will become boring after 3 
hours or so. That doesn't mean that this will happens to ALL music. But 
there will certainly be a segment like this. And - I'm sorry I have to 
say it - microsound will be one of the genres that will fit perfectly 
well to such a business. Created very fast with very much automation, 
there are  quite a lot of tracks that sound very well but are easy to 
manipulate/change/reproduce/modulate. As the Flash applications 
presented through this list show, it's not that difficult to create an 
hour lasting streams of interesting sound, that I can let run the whole 
time that I'm typing this silly text (in bad English). That means a 
chance and a burden for this genre.  We all have to see, sooner or 
later, that the quality measures for this kind of tapestry sound is 
completely different than for "the eternal pop song", but that doesn't 
mean this music is worse. So of course I can throw away a -let's say Kim 
Cascone-CD - for 3 Euros if I know that his output won't allow me to 
listen to anything else than his new stuff. That doesn't denigrate his 
music. It just shows that the development goes on and we found a new way 
of music that may be a bit like field sounds. An extension of the "real 
world", an addition to nature, "ambient music" in its original meaning. 
And that is then again one big difference between the book and the music 
market. You will never ever find an ambient book (perhaps unless it's a 
picture album - or - as Tim mentioned - the famous coffetable mag, which 
is also measured by total different qualities ).

Plastico schrieb:

>>Would you throw the CD away like a paperback if it cost 4 dollars?  Sure
>>    
>>
>you would.  OK NOT ALL OF YOU!!
>
>tell me
>how many times can you read the same book in a life time?
>and how many times can you play the same cd ?
>even if the cd is free i wouldn't throw away.
>ofcourse we are talking about good cd/books.
>P.
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: microsound-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>For additional commands, e-mail: microsound-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>website: http://www.microsound.org
>
>
>  
>

--------------020709070908000606080309--

------------------------------