| Subject: | Re: [RESOGUIT-L] EMusic | | Date: | Wednesday, April 11, 2007 06:23:52 (-0700) | | From: | Betty Wheeler <bettywheeler @.....com>
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| In reply to: | Message 6548 (written by Damon Wack) |
Good morning, Damon! That's a nice story about the young girl (though who
she is putting out of work by making and distributing her own
recordings is the record label; the part of what she is doing to put the
publisher out of work is retaining ownership and control of the copyright
for, and exploiting, the songwriting). Lots of musicians (esp. those in
bluegrass and other niche genres) do variations on this theme, at varying
levels of high-to-low tech, by keeping their publishing and creating and
distributing their own records (both physical product and digital
downloads), though obviously very few get the boost of being an iTunes
featured artist.
I have a Rhapsody subscription, so that I can stream music (as part of my
subscription fee) or download singles or albums (at a slightly lower cost
than iTunes et al.). I stream tons of stuff - CDs or artists I hear or read
about - and for a lot of it, I find I don't particularly like it, so the
subscription saves me from buying CDs I would immediately regret owning once
I hear them. (The label/artist gets a teeny micro-payment from Rhapsody
because I streamed the song.) But if it's something I like, or a known
artist where I know I'm going to want the CD without having to preview it, I
buy the physical CD because I want the liner notes, the detailed
track-by-track musician credits, etc. Some people (hi, Lee!) store the
cases far away once they upload to their iPods, whereas I keep mine handy
and find that even when I'm listening on iPod, I'm aways reaching for the CD
case to find out who is playing that squanky dobro solo on Track 3... or who
wrote the cool song on Track 8. I try to buy it as close to the artist as
possible (artist website or merch table), and if that's not possible, I try
to buy from a source that I think will return the most to the artist, but
that's often an educated guess. Or I try to buy from someplace I know is
reporting to Nielsen SoundScan, if I think the artist has any hope of ever
flying above radar. (In war, below radar is good; in music, above radar is
good; right?)
I've bought a lot of physical CD product because I first heard it on
Rhapsody; and to the extent someone lost a CD sale because I was able to
hear it first before I bought it and thought it was bad, I don't feel
apologetic about that.
Speaking of very cool things I first heard on Rhapsody because someone
mentioned it in a phone conversation: check out Uncle Josh's guest
appearance on Marty Stuart's Live at the Ryman CD -- he plays a stunning
version of Great Speckled Bird, among other things. That one tune, and the
way he plays it, could form the basis for a doctoral dissertation, in my
opinion - or at least a master's thesis.
Betty
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Re: [RESOGUIT-L] E
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