The album art/title will take you to the Amazon product page for the CD. The Myspace link will let you listen to some songs. I’ve made it a point to put my favorite song pick so you know which track to go for if you’re in an impatient mood.
That being said, here are my favorite new records of the first month of 2008 (after the jump):
First of all, I want to applaud CBS and last.fm for taking their service in this direction. I’ve used last.fm for a couple of years now and the number one wish I had was full-length track streaming. 30 second previews are simply useless as a music discovery tool. Like the recent fall of DRM, on demand free full-length track streaming seemed unattainable just one year ago. It’s good to see that progress is being made in catching up to actual consumer behavior. That being said, this service has a ways to go before it starts to become an indispensable music tool. Read the rest of this entry »
NPD just released their year-end figures for 2007 video game sales:
1. Halo 3 (Xbox 360) – 4,820,000
2. Wii Play with Remote (Wii) – 4,120,000
3. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) – 3,040,000
4. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2) – 2,720,000
5. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) – 2,520,000
6. Pokemon Diamond (DS) – 2,480,000
7. Madden NFL 08 (PS2) – 1,900,000
8. Guitar Hero II (PS2) – 1,890,000
9. Assassin’s Creed (Xbox 360) – 1,870,000
10. Mario Party 8 (Wii) – 1,820,000
Now, let’s compare these figures to Soundscan’s 2007 year-end figures for music cd sales:
1. “Noel”/Josh Groban: 3,699,000
2. “Soundtrack”/ High School Musical 2: 2,957,000
3. “Long Road Out of Eden”/Eagles: 2,608,000
4. “As I Am”/Alicia Keys: 2,543,000
5. “Daughtry”/Daughtry: 2,497,000
6. “Soundtrack”/Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley: 2,489,000
7. “Minutes To Midnight”/Linkin Park: 2,099,000
8. “Dutchess”/Fergie: 2,064,000
9. “Taylor Swift”/Taylor Swift: 1,951,000
10.”Graduation”/Kanye West: 1,892,000
I wonder which industry is doing better.
I’m going to point out a couple of obvious things. The average price of one of those video games is about $50. The average price of one of those CDs is about $10.
A scant few years ago this sort of thing would be UNHEARD of. Music is universal. You can play music CDs on pretty much any modern device anywhere (car, stereo, computer, alarm clock, etc.). To play any one of those video games you need to make an initial investment anywhere from $130-$400. AND you need to be at home or near a TV you can hook it up to.
The music CD is dead, people. We need a better way to buy our music and we need it now.
Oh, and video game industry? Don’t make the same mistake the record labels did. You’ll be facing the same problem very soon when it’s technically feasible for big budget games to be as easily consumed as music is currently.
Key Features:
Theres also an option to replace the 80GB hard drive with a 64GB Solid State Drive (flash memory) for $1300 (!).
My initial take:
All this said, I may be picking one of these up. I’ve never owned a Mac before and this may be the right product for me as I own an iPhone and have a screamingly powerful PC desktop already. It may be one of those things where seeing it in person puts you over the edge, but as of now it’s merely a modestly compelling product on its own. Not as mindblowing as the iPhone was last year, but something that makes sense to add to your gadget fleet if you are a tech geek or really need the ultraportability. I couldn’t see this as my primary computer, though. It just lacks the features and power for my needs as a content creator or gamer.
What makes this movie so good then? Each of its major contributors does his job magnificently. Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance is simply unparalleled. The man is in virtually every scene of the film and he absolutely fucking KILLS it. It’s the performance of his life, and probably of a generation as well. Paul Thomas-Anderson’s direction is magnificent. Not one line of dialog is unnecessary or forced. In fact, every verbal exchange has extreme gravitas. The landscapes and camera angles PTA employs are utterly breathtaking and unique. I’ve never seen a PTA movie before, but you can bet your sweet behind I will go through his filmography now. Finally, Radiohead’s own Jonny Greenwood composes a score that is surprisingly apropos and gripping. The film begins with a string crescendo that swells and swells until it becomes an almost shrieking cacophony. You want to avert your ears but you can’t. You’re forced to bear with it until it subsides. This is Daniel Plainview’s theme and it mirrors his soul perfectly. He does some truly deplorable things that you know are plain wrong, but you can’t ignore his actions.
Normally I hate period pieces, because they just bore me to death. Not this film, though. It fascinated me. I’m glad I got myself in the right frame of mind to see There Will Be Blood, because this was just a simply stunning work of art. I almost wish I was in film study because there’s just so much to talk about and analyze here, even days after viewing the movie.
That’s the mark of a truly great film.
I’m not the only one to feel this way either. This is a movie that is universally considered to be a masterpiece.
If I had seen this last year, it would have definitely vied for a top spot in my entertainment experiences list. An amazing achievement in film making.
Read the rest of this entry »
Without any more ado, here’s my top ten entertainment experiences of 2007: Read the rest of this entry »
Do I think Amazon MP3 has what it takes to take on iTunes? Sure. Amazon MP3 sells the better product to more possible customers at a better price ($0.89-$0.99 compared to the $1.29 of iTunes Plus). As long as consumers are educated properly and the service is marketed competently, there’s a very good chance this may be the one challenger to the iTunes throne to succeed.
But does this really matter at the end of the day?
No.
The future of music distribution is not in a la carte track sales. It’s in the pay-what-you-want model that Radiohead and Trent Reznor have pioneered. It’s in the value proposition that eMusic offers when you are getting $25 tracks for $9.99 a month. Neither of these are the ultimate solution, but they are steps forward. You have to look at how MOST people are consuming music nowadays. They do it via bulk through bittorrent or eDonkey or what have you. Selling DRM-free MP3′s for $0.89 each would have been a good start… seven years ago. In order to be the true winner of this sad drama, you have to be looking ahead of current consumption patterns. You need to take chances instead of playing catchup.
We’ve got a long way to go before this is finished.
Read the press release [businesswire.com]
Gizmodo has a paraphrased interview with Warner Home Entertainment president Kevin Tsujihara on why Warners made the switch:
Kevin Tsujihara told us that what was “somewhat troubling” is the “impact consumer confusion was starting to have” on regular DVD. “Consumers were saying ‘Hey, I might was well wait.’” If another studio had switched “it could have possibly impacted” Warner’s decision. Tsujihara said he “can’t anticipate” the other studios moving over to HD DVD “given the numbers that are out there.”
By choosing a side, Warner Bros. has tilted the balance of power significantly towards the Blu-ray camp in terms of studio clout. Only Paramount/Dreamworks and Universal remain exclusive to HD DVD. Granted, these are HUGE studios with a significant chunk of content that everyone wants to watch. In fact, there is enough content between them that I’m about to purchase an HD DVD player myself, despite already owning a Blu-ray player AND in spite of this recent announcement from Warner Bros.
Looking at the big picture, the real reason anyone buys these next-gen movie players is because they want to see movies in high definition. Without getting into technology spec bickering, both formats are essentially the same to the end-user. Unlike the different game consoles, there are no huge compelling feature differences to pick one format over the other. It simply boils down to “Is the movie I want to see released in Blu-ray or HD DVD.”
(As an aside: let me tell you, if you have an HD TV and you have any interest in watching movies, you need to procure one of these devices ASAP. The quality difference between standard DVDs and hi-def discs on a HD TV is so palpable it makes anyone question how they ever watched movies in such excrement in the past.)
Tsujihara is right in that all this “format war” has done is alienate customers and sow confusion and discontent among the masses. I applaud Warner Bros. for doing what they can to push the industry to a standard hi-def movie format. But in all honesty, I wouldn’t be surprised if both formats co-existed for a couple of more years. That is why I’m taking the plunge and buying an Xbox 360 HD-DVD player to complement my PS3′s Blu-ray capability. Stand alone low-end HD DVD players can be had from the low $100s nowadays. Couple this with a $399 Playstation 3 and you have the capability to play every hi-def movie on the market now and in the future. You’re looking at a roughly $550 expenditure and you get a gaming system to boot. This is lower than buying one of the combo players on the market. Yes, $550 is a chunk of change, but for those of us who can afford hi-def televisions in the first place, spending a fraction of that on one of the main reasons you bought that expensive TV in the first place starts to make sense. Not to mention, just one year ago, owning both format players would have cost you from $1500-$2000.
So what if my $100 HD-DVD player goes the way of Betamax in a year or two. In an age of ephemeral home electronics devices, a two year lifespan for a $100 device may even sound good.
Read the press release [timewarner.com]
Saul’s previous record was released in 2004 and has sold 33,897 copies.
As of 1/2/08,
154,449 people chose to download Saul’s new record.
28,322 of those people chose to pay $5 for it, meaning:
18.3% chose to pay.
As expected, a minority of people actually paid for the album, despite being offered higher quality file formats for the songs as an incentive. How does Trent feel about this?
If that assumption is correct – that most of the people that chose to download Saul’s record came from his or my own fan-base – is it good news that less than one in five feel it was worth $5? I’m not sure what I was expecting but that percentage – primarily from fans – seems disheartening.
He then goes on to lament over how he spent too much on producing the album and that it was a project that “nobody’s getting rich off [of]“. However, Trent’s assuming a lot about who’s buying the record. In exactly two months, the new record has moved almost as many “units” as Saul’s last album. That’s a pretty decent amount, in my opinion. Not to mention, over 5 times as many people have been exposed to the album. Granted, the last album could have had more exposure due to file trading/sharing and such, but at least now Saul has hard numbers as to what his audience reach is. Reznor’s disappointment is no undoubtedly exacerbated by the fact that he spent a lot of money producing and distributing the record. Despite this, though, I feel this is one of the best sales models for a developing artist to adopt. I would imagine lots of baby bands aren’t going to be spending the fortune that Reznor did to produce their albums. It’s also a painless, non-insulting way for artists and fans to distribute and consume new music. It provides a method of monetary compensation to the artist that may not have existed under the previous CD-only model. Perhaps some more incentive could be given to the fans who like the music enough that they want to support it. Maybe this could be a concert ticket discount, a piece of merch, or some kind of badge of honor.
It may not be the perfect solution to the music distribution problem, but it’s certainly a good start. If more artists adopt this model, it definitely opens the door for bandwidth/backend solution providers to get in on the act. Eventually, the benefits of economies of scale can be reaped, further making it easier for anyone to cheaply distribute their music to the world.
Kudos to Trent and Saul for actively trying to make headway on revolutionizing the business model of music. Keep your chin up, dawg! You did good, Trent. You did good.
NiggyTardust Followup [nin.com]
