Music Collectors: Rare Recordings Go Digital
prof_rockwell
2,867 Posts
from Newseek this week:
Oct. 23, 2006 issue - Looking for the 1986 debut of reggae band African Head Charge on Apple's iTunes? You'd sooner find Microsoft Office. To that end, avid record collector Keith Abrahamsson has launched Anthology Recordings (anthologyrecordings.com), the first digital reissue label, as a marketplace for obscure sounds. Like labels such as The Numero Group, Anthology will sell handpicked rarities, but in MP3 format only, with tracks priced at 98 cents. A market exists; Oliver Wang runs Soul Sides[/b], an audio blog for rare funk, and boasts 40,000 visitors per month. Numero cofounder Ken Shipley is not sure digital rarities will sell to collectors, who generally like tangible objects: "To succeed at this, there has to be some physical component," he says. But Anthology may be perfect for those who don't want to buy vinyl to get into the groove.???Joshua Alston
Comments
Even if it's in the public domain, it doesn't mean you're not going to pay for the opportunity to download it. Anybody who goes to the trouble of sourcing the masters, digitizing, and distributing rare album X is going to expect that people pay for the right to consume the music. How can you complain about a buck a track, anyway? That seems like a reasonable price to me.
In any case, I said the exact same thing Ken said: interesting idea, no market potential.
I too was a bit surprised at how long the piece was, especially since the writer and I talked about a million other things that were not Anthology, and for less than a minute about what ended up being said subject matter.
Does anyone here think there's a real market for this kind of thing? Convince geezers like Oliver and I.
If there is then I've given away approx $11,983.03 in free RAER MP3'S
yeah, it was in the "Periscope" section, which is usually just a page of 3-4 blurbs on random cultural happenings. The other article was on some cookbook that just came out and it got almost a full page.
As for market potential - not too sure, but I think there could be something said for a digital archive/library project. That could be some grant money potential.
I mean people like me who hate MP3s would never buy something there, and I think many strutters wouldnt buy a lot of things there too, but there are enough "normal" people, especialy woman, who are not nerdy vinyl collectros and who would like to get some "good" music.
The problem is that they will never know where to go and what to look for. So the marketing thing is the problem.
There are a lot of woman magzines out there for the ladys between 18 - 35 and they must be pushed to bring reviews about those download sites and the content.
The same goes for online sites where those ladys are hanging around.
There is a market outside the usual bubblegum-MTV-mainstream market but getting infos to those people is hard.
A small piece in a newspapper is like pissing against the wind.
Peace
Hawkeye
Yup I also don't like mp3s, but when I have a decent mp3 of a song or an album I can at least listen to it. I can't afford every record I want anyway, I'm not Bill Gates. And one dollar for one song in decent quality is a reasonable price, isn't it?
So I try to buy a record for one euro which brings me 12 tracks for the price of one.
Peace
Hawkeye
b/w
MP3 gripping has brought little dudeness to even smaller levels of little dudeness.
b/w (that's right 3 sided)
The idea of selling rare MP3's is totally lame.
RIGHT NOW (i.e. at this moment in time) - most of the the market who'd be interested in a reissue of some private press freak-folk LP is likely to be 1) older and 2) desiring of said reissue on a physical format (i.e. CD or LP). I don't think you can sell that same person on a digital-only reissue because it's not solely about the music; it's about the object too. Photos, liner notes, the whole nine.
For a younger person, they may be far more MP3 friendly and not give a fuck about packaging. However, they also probably don't give a fuck about paying $10 for a digital album either, especially given the rise on full album MP3 blogs that are out there right now. I mean, why would you bother to pay for a digital reissue of a rare album when rare albums of all stripes and sounds are already available for free and I'm not talking about Janet Jackson's new CD, I'm talking about some crazy obscure mighty collectro shit. FOR FREE.
So basically, a label like Anthology has to convince both older folks that they don't really need the CD or LP and younger folks that it's worth their money to buy digital music from them.
RIGHT NOW...I just don't see this as a successful business model. Will they sell some stuff? Sure. But enough to sustain a label? Eh...
5 years from now? Who knows.
I clearly see the potential for it, but still think it's depressing. I am just not into the coming invisible music scene. I think it's crap and I think it's sad and I think people are cheating themselves. And by no means have all the interesting and amazing records been discovered. I could cry myself to sleep every night cause I was born too late for the Pakora psych in the dollar bin days, but I'm not. People who think this way are totally narrow minded. Seriously dudes clear your minds of Boscoe, step out of the record boutiques, log out of eBay and go find some interesting records on your own. It's not difficult.
The music industry as a whole needs to put the breaks on the pirating without coming off like Big Brother. I don't know if that's possible, but it needs to be done if they want to start making money again.
But I'm saying: this doesn't really do anything to staunch the expectation by younger music fans that anything they want can be gotten for free. People who buy music online tend to do it out of convenience but the bulk of those consumers are looking for the major albums. Sure, the long tail of commerce may be some real shit but it's one thing to be iTunes and have a huge long tail to profit of vs. Anthology where their biggest releases are at the end of the tail in terms of market appeal.
I go out looking for records all the time, but it's always running against the wind. I missed the gold rush, but I'll still purchase that one Allman Brothers album I don't have, mint up on Exile on Main Street. Sure I might not have too many Boscoe-like moments, but there's enough classics out there to keep things interesting.
I'm going to still buy vinyl, but as a dildo using DJ, it's just one of those things that we're going to have to get used to. Besides, less folls buying records = more records for us!
The issue here isn't one of analog vs. digital. It's about whether or not a physical object still matters when it comes to music. And moreover, whether a younger generation, raised on file-sharing, will still see the worth in buying music they might otherwise find for free without much effort.
Sorry, I'm not trying single you out personally. And we all have "Boscoe moments". I'd be lying if I said I don't daydream about certain completely unattainable records. but I just get sick of the total lemming-like attitude displayed by record collectors. There is so much whining about "oh oh I NEED this and this and this." And all the MP3 sharing just seems to be making it worse. And like odub said, the real market for this shit already knows where to get it free. Plus, where are companies that want to co-opt this going to get these "rare mp3's". I can probably safely say that I know about 75% of the people who are currently making actually rare records available in MP3 format. These MP3 bloggers are all getting shit from the same places and cycling it around amongst themselves over and over.
Speak for yourself Crinky. I offer only 100% homegrown, digitized wax. NO recycled material or fillers (just like a higher quality dog food).
While I suppose sites like yours and mine could be technically considered "blogs", I'd much rather consider them websites - this making them exempt from blog scrutiny.
B/W
god damn it takes forever to reply today.
I'll buy that. b/w Jeebus can it get any slower????
This is important. Folks, the cat is out of the bag. If you want any song ever recorded, you can hear it for free. It's been like this for about 7-8 years. The gap between folks that have a need for a physical object and those that don't is widening 1) in the present, once folks slowly begin to allow their inherent pragmatism to take hold of their collecting habits, and 2) because the folks who will never listen to an iPod or digital music - the Joe Bussards of the world - are dying and cannot take their music with them. Also, I suppose, because 3) the generation of my prospective children's prospective children will simply not care to much degree about Northern Soul - the music itself, irrespective of format. For the most part, we collect music that our parents were around to hear first-hand. If not for the abberation of hip-hop and sampling, do you think that some folks our age would consider spending $5,000 for a hard copy of Salt when they could either buy the in-print SoulJazz comp or get an mp3 gratis? If we hadn't heard That Hot Sample back in 1986, would Funk and Soul be as important to us? Maybe so (definitely so in my case), but extrapolate that two generations down the line, and I can almost guarantee that the majority of kids growing up in 2040 won't care enough about our music to constitute a stable market (how useless is music going to be in 2040? The mind boggles.).
It's an issue of the collectors' extremes of Fanaticism vs. Pragmatism; do you have to have the raerist 1sttestpressmonoprintingwiththepasteoncoverstillintheshrink (that, incidently, has lost real market value consecutively for each of the last 5 years, pending flavor-of-the-month spikes), or do you simply want to hear the goddamn music - for free, at that? The mp3 is really defining a hard line between hard-copy collectors and ordinary aficionados. Consider this: in 10-15 years, portable storage will be exponentially greater, to the point where mere 200mb flash drives will be scoffed at. If you can simply copy your buddy's entire 500mb playlist onto your iPod in 1 minute, and share yours with him for compensation, wash/rinse/repeat - like folks do right now - then why would people NOT continue do this to a greater extent? Perhaps the Music Industry Of The Future will determine how to seamlessly incorporate Space Age DRM Technology with their NEW singles, but as far as the extant history of recorded music until that point is concerned, the barn door is open and the horses, cows, and sheep stole the farmer's tractor and done took off for Reno.
I wouldn't try making a living out of this, but if some people feel an urge, why not ? I wouldn't care if for whatever way they earn for a living. As long as people don't need to pay big money for not so really thoroughly great music, it's fine with me. The true desirable items will only stand out more for those who really want to buy a nice record.
Quality re-issues could have a market. Also, the hypebeast limited pressings, too. Mp3's are cool, but there still time before they become the sole format on which to purchase music.