Let's make albums move
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Apple is going to start bundling interactive content with albums on iTunes. The hope is to stimulate album sales. Last year, I was on an animated album artwork kick — see here and here. At that point, I wondered why more people didn’t do it. Now the answer is obvious. It’s expensive and difficult. One has to pay for a web designer and hosting space. The only metal bands I’ve seen with animated artwork are Cradle of Filth and Mastodon. Both are backed by big money (Roadrunner and Warner, respectively). Cradle of Filth’s “virtual vinyl” page is fun for five minutes. Mastodon’s Flash-o-rama page for Crack the Skye is a headache. (See screenshot above.) What’s worse, killing trees to print Photoshopped images, or spewing digital junk?
Aesthetics aside, Apple has solved the practical issue of enabling animated artwork. Its size and money allow it to host a platform on which bands and labels can mount content. This prevents the unwieldiness of, say, separate websites for millions of albums. The downside is that this further cements Apple’s dominance. Amazon has a perfectly fine (and much more user-friendly) MP3 store. But iPod and iPhone users are already leashed to iTunes. The record industry must be kicking itself to be under Apple’s boot.
Professionally, I look forward to richer digital content. It’s good that many promos now are served digitally. This saves everyone time and money. But most of the time, digital promos are crap. Usually I’m given badly tagged (if tagged at all) MP3’s at lo-fi bitrates (192kbps or below), with no artwork or lyrics. That’s like seeing a foreign color movie in black & white with no subtitles. I don’t understand why labels don’t put their best foot forward with promos. Reviewers should have the most information about a release. After all, we supply ratings, “press quotes,” and other such amusements. I constantly get promo CD’s wrapped in acres of one-sheets, but with no artwork or lyrics. That’s a serious misplacement of priorities.
