An Idea For iTunes

This Thursday I will be driving the 45 minutes needed to get to Nottingham’s Rock City. Headlining the show will be those Scottish metal pirates Alestorm, supported by The Rotted and Eden’s Curse. However I have never heard anything by these bands at all so I checked them out on Spotify just so I knew what I was getting myself into. Why go to the gig if you don’t know the bands I hear you ask, because it’s for the particularly wonderful website OneMetal. Anyway, on to the idea!

Independent Music Charts To Launch

So here’s the plan; to combat the complaints of artists going mainstream and therefore losing their die hard fans due to ‘selling out’, a whole new music chart is going to be launched so underground artists can still claim to be number one in the charts. Sounds simple, but will it be effective?

Later this month two new record charts will be launched (an album chart and a single chart) but is only eligible to artists who have never made the top 20 and are not signed to the four major labels – Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI.

Spotify vs iTunes

Back when Spotify began it was seen by many as another rival to We7 and LastFM, but now it’s trying to challenge the online music titans of iTunes.

Spotify has been rumoured to be extending its current £9.99 ad-free service to also include unlimited music downloads which can be stored on your hard drive. Currently music can only be streamed in a ‘radio’ style.

The premise of paying a subscription fee for mp3s could pose a threat to iTunes, which currently charges 79p for each song. A charge of 79p equates to 12 songs for £9.48, whereas Spotify will allow unlimited music downloads for 51p more.

However Spotify does not have the extensive library that iTunes boasts, although it is growing day-by-day. Were Spotify’s library to increase to the full extent of iTunes then we could see the online music market change dramatically. Although Apple will more than likely combat Spotify somehow, the whole idea of online music is still in its early stages and no-one knows exactly what the best course of action is in terms of customer satisfaction and artist’s being paid.

What’s your opinion?

Download Spotify here: https://www.spotify.com/en/

Music On The Mind’s April Playlist: http://open.spotify.com/user/lukemorton/playlist/48IJDoqlRcVkMBvUz8lnXw

Another Twist In Getting The Beatles Online

It has become common knowledge for those of us who purchase music online that The Beatles aren’t there. They don’t feature on any online service such as iTunes or Amazon. Many speculate that when the fab four’s music is finally uploaded to the world wide web they will top the charts almost instantly, but when will this day actually come?

It was announced last week that Norwegian website Nrk.no would be posting a series of podcasts which feature The Beatles’ music plus a commentary about each song. It was thought that all 212 podcasts featuring The Beatles would eventually be uploaded onto the internet…until Apple Corps got wind of it. Legal action was threatened due to the podcasts being unauthorised and as such the podcasts are no longer available on the internet.

Personally I can’t see what the annoyance is with a podcast, it’s not technically online music. Podcasts are basically radio shows for the new golden online age, everyone can have one. They are not music tracks which can be put onto a CD, they’re radio shows which will ONLY play in iTunes or on an iPod. Also if the Nrk.no podcasts featured talking about each song then it was hardly a listening experience of a lifetime. Apple Corps need to realise however that most Beatles fans already own a lot of their music and it’s very easy to aquire some more for free from the internet.

I have no idea what the constant ‘talks’ are about between The Beatles, EMI and Apple Corps but they need to realise that if people want music then they will get it – one way or another. Stop being so egotistical about the whole thing and put the back catalogue onto iTunes and make a bit more money for yourself, where is the problem?

AC/DC Resist The Future Of Music

Whilst roaming around the internet looking for the latest music news, and amongst the latest tour dates and album releases it seems AC/DC have lost their minds.

AC/DC at present do not have any of their back catalogue on iTunes available for download, instead they are sticking to CDs.

Angus Young (guitarist) told the Telegraph; “We believe the songs on any of our albums belong together. If we were on iTunes, we know a certain percentage of people would only download two or three songs from the album. We don’t think that represents us musically.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I agree that all songs on an album belong together. But I have three AC/DC albums and none of which would I consider a ‘concept’ album, it is perfectly possible to listen to one song and enjoy it without missing the backstory. However there are bands who do produce concept albums and have the songs individually listed on iTunes to download, these include; The Mars Volta, Mastodon and even Pink Floyd. If you were to download the Pink Floyd classic ‘Another Brick In The Wall Part.2’ then you not only have you missed out on parts 1 and 3 but the rest of ‘The Wall’ album. On the other hand, if you downloaded the infamous AC/DC track ‘Highway To Hell’ you wouldn’t miss out on it’s meaning or relevance to the rest of the album.

Mr. Young went on to say; “Since iTunes came into existence, we’ve actually increased our back catalogue sales without being on the site”. Now this may be the case, but I don’t think many new people have been introduced to their music. I tend to download songs from iTunes to see what a band is like – it’s only 79p – but if I walk into HMV I don’t spend £10 on an album that I might not like. I’m pretty positive the sales AC/DC have attributed are from present AC/DC fans, not music lovers looking for something new.

If AC/DC want to keep a fanbase and expand on it in the future then using the internet is the way forward. They have an album coming out on October 20th and I can guarantee only current AC/DC fans will buy it.

Picture Reference: http://www.virginmedia.com