Digital Music Frontier

- Apparently, Steve Jobs hasn’t changed his mind on the subscription model, yet. “Never say never, but customers don’t seem to be interested in it,” said Jobs, to Reuters. “People want to own their music.”

Um, yes, this is one of many reasons why eMusic is doing so well. You subscribe to a plan, but also own the music. It gives the labels some certainty, while still allowing people to own the music they download. Sure it would cost quite a bit more, if it involved the major labels, but a hybrid subscription model, like eMusic, from iTunes would be hugely popular.

- Hypebot argues that Apple isn’t really into the whole DRM-free thing. If Apple wanted to, says hypebot, they could have had indie labels selling DRM-free music already. While it’s true that they could have had indies selling DRM-free music (like eMusic) on iTunes, I think that Apple is more concerned right now with putting pressure on the majors. The indies will fall into place later, by their logic. This Reuters article seems to back me up.

- Coming in “late-June”…the iPhone…I wouldn’t be surprised if this inches back even further from the early-June date they gave in January.

Update: Since I first published this review, I have begun showing eMusic ads on my site. Don’t worry, I’m not going to be a shill for every product I come across. I was just blown away by the service that eMusic provides, and I decided I would like to spread the word as much as possible. My editorial judgment will not be compromised, but please, if you haven’t already signed up for eMusic, go ahead and click on the eMusic ads, and sign up for a free trial. You won’t be sorry.

Here’s the original review:

All I can say is wow. I wish I would have subscribed to eMusic sooner. It is almost everything you could ask for in a digital music download service. I can see why it’s subscription rate is booming right now. First lets look at the positives, and there are many,

DRM-free Mp3’s. Obviously, this is sort of a prerequisite, especially if you don’t have music from the major labels available.

Very easy to use interface. Browsing for music is made very easy by clicking on category links, which lead to more sub-category links. Downloading is easy and very fast.

Easy to find new music. This is made possible by the category/sub-category layout I described, but also because it seems like almost every album has a description, by the eMusic editors, by users, links to allmusic.com, etc. Very nice to just read and try out new music.

Incentive to buy new music. eMusic is amazingly cheap. Some users have complained about rising subscription rates, but at worst you are paying .33 per song. Tough to complain about that. The low prices give users an incentive to buy and try new music.

Great catalog of indie artists. This was the real kicker for me. I had always assumed that eMusic, because it only had independent labels, wouldn’t have that much to offer. And I assumed that big indie acts like Arcade Fire wouldn’t be on eMusic, either. Wow, was I wrong. I don’t keep track of who is on what label as much as I probably should, but eMusic has essentially a who’s who of independent artists available. To name a few,

The Hold Steady (I’m from Minneapolis, so I had to put them first), Cat Power, Neko Case, The Pixies, Sufjan Stevens, The White Stripes, Spoon, Ryan Adams, The Decemberists, Arcade Fire, Yo La Tengo, Belle and Sebastian…

eMusic also has a large collection of jazz, hip-hop, comedy, blues, and classical music. I’m excited about trying out some of the electronic music. I normally don’t buy electronic/instrumental/ambient music, but with such little price risk, I will.

Easy to move music into iTunes. This was always another worry for me. I like to have everything in one place and not have to worry about it. In hindsight this was silly, since it took all of 2 seconds to move the eMusic downloads into iTunes.

Web 2.0 aspects. Another nice feature is the Web 2.0/community features that eMusic offers. eMusic will look at what you download at link you up with other users that have similar interests like Last.fm. I haven’t really used this aspect yet, but it’s nice to have available nonetheless.

I do have a few problems with eMusic,

Subscription model isn’t perfect. Unused tracks don’t rollover month to month. You get a certain number of tracks each month depending on your subscription, and the ones you don’t use disappear. This makes it somewhat awkward when you have two tracks leftover and you don’t want to lose them, but you can’t find any single tracks to buy. You can buy a “booster pack” which allows to have a certain number of downloads that will rollover, but I still have a minor issue with this. Of course, this is how eMusic makes money with the subscription plans. It’s how Netflix makes money. Make money on the light users, while you struggle to break even on the heavy users.

20 second previews aren’t long enough. Like iTunes, eMusic gives you 20 second previews of songs. For a lot of songs this isn’t nearly enough time to decide whether you like it or not. Especially for stuff like electronic music and jazz. 20 seconds? Come on.

An eMusic radio would be nice. I would love to have a radio station that was based on my preferences and download history and integrated with the store. Just a thought.

In conclusion, I recommend eMusic to everyone, and hopefully the rumored Amazon Music Download Store and iTunes will move in this direction, as they wrestle with the major labels. If not, there will always be some good stuff to find on eMusic.

Billboard ran a story Monday on the long rumored Amazon digital music download store. Most of the details are still kind of sketchy at this point, but here’s what we know,

The store will open in May, according to sources. Amazon has yet to confirm this.

Universal will be using the platform to test selling DRM-free downloads, starting with it’s Classical music selections, “conceivably including titles by Andrea Bocelli.” Sources are also claiming that Universal will be testing the DRM-free waters in other genres too.

Amazon changed it’s initial plans to push protected Mp3’s on their own player, after seeing the problems that Microsoft’s Zune had last year with it’s locked in digital music model.

It is still unclear just what will be available on the Amazon store. Most of the labels are taking a wait and see approach when it comes to releasing unprotected digital downloads. Will EMI’s catalog be available? What about all the independents that make up the eMusic store? At least one indie label wants a higher price point for better quality downloads.

What byte-rate will Amazon be making available for download? Looks like 128 and 256, but this is still unclear. At what price? Don’t know yet.

The good news out of all of this, obviously, is that Amazon is going the DRM-free route, and Universal is at least trying it out, although it seems maybe a little difficult to make a judgment on DRM based on the Classical music collection. To make any kind of halfway decent judgment on this, you have to open up at least parts of your popular music collection. Maybe they will. At least it’s one more step in the right direction.

As most people who follow new album releases probably know by now, the new Wilco album, “Sky Blue Sky,” has leaked to the internet. The album, which will officially be released on May 15th, was leaked in early March.

The band seems mostly ambivalent about the leak, saying essentially that it may hurt album sales somewhat, but that it may increase revenue from other sources.

Jeff Tweedy, talking with Billboard, is quoted as saying,

“There’s probably some good argument to be made that it will prevent a few people from buying the record . . . But there’s also the idea that I believe is true for us, which is, it’s people listening to our music.”

In an interview with X-Press Online, Wilco’s drummer Glenn Kotche said,

. . . It’s absolutely true… I have met countless people at shows who have confessed that they have downloaded our records illegally - or burned copies instead of buying it - and then you see them at a show and they have bought tickets to the show and they are going to buy the older records or t-shirts or whatever.

If any band truly understands the nature of album leaks, it would be Wilco. In 2002, their album “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” was leaked and went on to sell over 500,000 copies. Their next album, “A Ghost Is Born” was also leaked and opened at #8 on the Billboard charts.

Obviously, these successes do not necessarily indicate a correlation with leaks and album sales, but they could.

More recently, Modest Mouse’s new album “We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank” was leaked before it’s official release and went on to open at #1 on the charts with album sales of more than 130,000 copies. Bright Eyes‘ new album, “Cassadaga” also leaked before it’s official release last week, and initial reports have it doing very well, too.

Is there enough evidence to suggest that leaks actually increase album sales? Probably not. But as much as album leaks may hurt sales, the extra buzz from the blogosophere and mainstream media outlets, like Reuters, who end up writing about the leak, likely at least make up for lost sales and probably add a few more.

Okay, so I’ve been away for a while. Blogger was creating some real headaches for me so I went ahead and did the inevitable and switched to Wordpress. As you might imagine, the transition wasn’t easy for a blogging newbie like myself, but, I made it…Finally.

Anyway, it was a busy week, and one of the major stories this week involved a new competitor to the iPod, the Sansa Connect.

The Sansa Connect is a 4GB flash-based Mp3 player with wireless capability. With a decent WiFi connection, the Sansa Connect will allow users to connect (I’m seeing a theme developing here) to the Yahoo music service.

I’m not going to do a full analysis, partly because there are already some very good ones, here and here. What is really interesting, though, is how this could effect the nature of next-generation Mp3 players, like the next iPod and the iPhone.

Last week, there was a report that within six months Apple may add a subscription service to its digital music empire.

WiFi devices like the Sansa Connect will make these subscription services more attractive. With the ability to download songs and switch internet-radio style playlists on the go, WiFi Mp3 players give the music fan more ways to listen to and buy music. And as David Card from JupiterResearch Analyst Weblogs points out, this will only increase the chances of a “jukebox in the sky” music future.

In the short term, though, the Sansa Connect may not be the answer. As attractive as it is, it doesn’t have a keypad, so users won’t be able to do a whole lot with the WiFi connection.

There is a device coming out, however, that will have a keypad and an internet connection. The Apple iPhone. Assuming Apple allows users of the new phone to access the iTunes Music Store and make downloads on the go, this will make a big impact going forward. It is also rumored that the next-gen iPod will have WiFi connectivity. Giving consumers the choice to buy and listen to whatever they want, whenever and wherever, can only help the music industry.