Opeth and the new age of record releasing...

[shgR]

to download MP3's digitally is to me worthless... to me thats like downloading a .jpg file of a painting, rather than buying the physical painting and put it on your wall.
who wants their entire life on a computer? if you love music, you would want to have it PHYSICALLY, and to have it with you your entire life, enjoying the artwork in your hands! if your computer crashes, all the files will be gone.. you can of course download them again, but in my opinion that is not the same. in fact you cant even compare it to have the physical art in your hands.

 

[Carta's]

if your computer crashes, all the files will be gone..

If your house burns, your CDs will be gone.

 

[Kazraine]

if you love music, you would want to have it PHYSICALLY

lol, maybe if you can freeze music at a really, really, really unheard of temperature it will turn into music crystals that we can keep forever in a necklace etc...

MP3 all the way!!

Nah, why limit anything to one or the other. The more choices the more people to cater for and the more money there is to be made by the record companies.

Hurray!

CD's will become rare, but still probably exist like records nowadays. But since CD's aren't as valuable as vinyl the CD's will probably need to have more to them, special features and packaging etc like someone else mentioned.

 

[TehLeperAffinity]

if you love music, you would want to have it PHYSICALLY, and to have it with you your entire life, enjoying the artwork in your hands!

what does looking at artwork have to do with loving music?

 

[outerone]

In the long run, I think that no band actually has a choice in this matter. The future is digital sale. Heck, it's nearly the present.

I dont think that it is just digital and thats all in the future. As long as we live in a material world, we will have albums that people can touch. But the good idea about releasing an album early in digital and later as CD is that then fans get the album early and bands dont have to worry about leaks. And then a band can release the album as a special edition CD or vinyl that fans will definetly dish out money for.

But unless Opeth can scrape together several £1000 for recording licencing copyright and pressing costs this will be difficult, also Judy has her own Professional standard studio so each recording costs very little and the money she askes for in pre orders allows better studios to be used to record drums in or to mix in or for some session musicians. Opeth in my opinion would need a load of money to record an album at an Ok studio like they have been using as say 3 months lockout is probably £21000 or so and thats not covering mastering album art legal fees ect. then touring and this is a guess say 10 roadies including lighting guys and sound guys and a tour manager and a tour bus and a truck for the equipment. You would be looking at maybe £12000 to £15000 per week to tour Europe. The venue and promotor want thier slice of the pie and Opeth get whats left to pay for the tour. I think nice idea but not yet

If a record label can do it so can a band. If a record company puts out money for album recording and tours, they dont do it for free and they make money back. But if the band is more in charge of this then process they will see more money come their way, thus resulting in money to spend on tours and recording. The band would essentially set up their own record label to release albums through and this would result in bands having a better say on the future of the band.

Mainly all this would be done to eliminate the strong hold of big labels that control bands too much. In Opeths case I believe they dont have to worry about that too much... but then again some believe Roadrunner is a corporate label and if Opeth continues to grow they may want to run the band more.

I think labels will have to find something to convert the last old-fashioned music-lovers like me. Something to add to the simple mp3, to fill in the lack of artwork. And no, jpeg is not an alternative.

Special Edition releases, look at Radiohead "In Rainbows" we got the digital album 1 week after we first heard news of a new album. Instant reward and a great suprise for fans. 2 months later, a freaking amazing package with CD and vinyl. Imagine if you could get the new Opeth album today as a high resolution file (like NIN did) and at the same time order a cool huge package that would include all kinds of amazing bonuses... DVDs, CD, vinyl, art etc. etc. ... this would arrive a little later.

 

[outerone]

I think one aspect of owning physical copies that would be lost is when you have people over to your house or they ride in your car and they check out your music collection by thumbing through your cd cases. Great music conversations will be lost....

Sorry to say this but the day the music becomes completely digital I won't pay for it. I really need the physical album, CD, vinyl or whatever. I love good editions, booklets, artwork... and no, seeing it on a pc screen is not enough.

I highly highly doubt that CDs will go away for a looong time and if they do something that you can hold will replace them. There will always be people that need matterials to collect and hold.

Imagine if Opeth were to release a special edition Watershed album that has a huge book, package, CDs and DVDs plus little extra stuff. There are thousands of die hard Opeth fans that would right away purchase that for their collection... price range $50-$80. Plus at the same time release the digital album for $6 (or so). This digital album would also be purchased by die hards if it were out before the package, plus the digital would be purchased by new fans and casual fans... The profit and promo for the band would be a win, fans would get album soon and cool package, win!!

I had no problem paying $85 for the amazing Radiohead In Rainbows package, plus I got the digi file right away.

 

[outerone]

what does looking at artwork have to do with loving music?

Its a complete package. You dont have to love the package to enjoy the music but it definetly enhances the experience! Most people Im sure love the day a new album arrives, you open the package, pop the CD in and enjoy the cool design/art as the music plays, thus creating cool images in your head and reading info on the recording and credits. Too bad some bands out there dont appreciate good design/art and thus put out some crappy CD packages.

 

[dwoakee]

I dont think that it is just digital and thats all in the future. As long as we live in a material world, we will have albums that people can touch. But the good idea about releasing an album early in digital and later as CD is that then fans get the album early and bands dont have to worry about leaks. And then a band can release the album as a special edition CD or vinyl that fans will definetly dish out money for.

I agree that the CD won't vanish completely for quite a while, just as the LP didn't. I still have about 70 LPs - cause it isn't so easy to convert them into MP3 - and while I'm giving away lots of my CDs I'm still keeping about 200 of them. And in the future I will continue to buy Opeth albums as CDs.

The point is: in the near and middle future, CDs will only be bought by *fans* and some people who want to hold something in their hand. But this group of people will still get smaller and smaller. I think, once people have realized that handling mp3s is easier and takes up less space and is cheaper they'll never get back to CDs or any other physical medium.

 

[Alteredmindeath]

I am an album collector, if I can't have albums in physical form that would destroy one of my hobbies in life. I dont mind if the band does the computer thing as long as there is an option to buy the cd in physical form like NIN did.

 

[Slynt]

I love the whole MP3 thing, and I love using WinAmp with all it's neat functions, and I rarely touch my 700+ CDs anymore. I have scanned and made PDFs of the most important booklets (such as Opeth's, obviously), so I can flip through the covers in a larger size than the actual product.

CDs are just a cheap whore-ass product, they are basically high quality mp3s (ok lossless sound but you get the point) printed onto a small silver disc which is as easy to scratch to all fuck as it is to get your harddrive owned.
CDs are incredibly cheap to produce, yet they want me to pay insane amounts of money for one (especially in Norway).

So I still buy essential CDs, but not nearly as many as I used to, cause I don't miss them. If I want a disc I can burn one with the relevant songs no big deal.
Cover? Artwork? Got them on PDF.

I'm not paying upwards to 200 norwegian kroner for a CD which costs 5-10 kroner to produce unless it is so good the band deserves to get a place on the shelf.

Nothing wrong with mp3s, then. ^^

 

[Cyrosis]

I'm not paying upwards to 200 norwegian kroner for a CD which costs 5-10 kroner to produce unless it is so good the band deserves to get a place on the shelf.

Nothing wrong with mp3s, then. ^^

Yet an mp3 is created for free, and you're willing to pay for that? You obviously have some logic issues to work out with that argument.

The whole production cost, and value of a CD argument gets old, real fast, no one seems to realize you aren't paying for the CD, you are paying for the music contained on it. If you want to pay for just the CD, go buy some CD-R's.

As for me, I wouldn't want to pay for any music digitally distributed, but if there is a day where there is absolutely no way to get a physical copy of it, I sure as hell won't pay for an mp3, we have the bandwidth now, give us lossless.

 

[Slynt]

Well I didn't say I paid for my mp3s though. But I see that my statement may be seen as a bit contradictory in that light. The point is, however, that a CD is much more expensive than mp3s.

 

[Frosties]

I'm one of those people who prefer the cd to the mp3 - and not because of the quality, more because of the physicality of it, but I can't help wondering if this is how people felt 20 years ago when cd's replaced lp's. I mean, times are a-changing, and it's good to change with it. I don't want to be in 20 years as cd collector like an LP collectore is now, ya know? Of course, bands DO release both formats, but you can't just go into any music store and get an impluse buy of an LP nowadays - at least not here. And I'd be really dissapointed if that is the way it's gonna be in 10 years.



I don't even remember my point...

 

[Cyrosis]

Well I didn't say I paid for my mp3s though. But I see that my statement may be seen as a bit contradictory in that light. The point is, however, that a CD is much more expensive than mp3s.

I assume prices are different then here in the US, but I get my CD's for pretty much the same price I'd be paying if I went with mp3's.

I still find it rather unfortunate that instead of new formats like SACD and DVD-A catching on, which imho is a needed upgrade to CD, we get stuck with a downgrade to CD. This is pretty much the worst case scenario in the works.

 

[Klämrisk]

I have recently started converting all my CDs to MP3 and giving away those CDs which don't mean that much to me. I don't want to buy more CD shelfs. From now on, I'll buy all my music digitally, except for Opeth. So, because of this exception it doesn't really matter to me personally whether Opeth radiohead their music in the future. I'll wait for the CD anyway . (As long as CDs are produced, that is.)

In the long run, I think that no band actually has a choice in this matter. The future is digital sale. Heck, it's nearly the present.

I'm living in a nightmare. Do people actually want fucking bad quality writing-protected MP3-files which you anyway only can open with your fucking iPod? I mean, you get better quality AND not writing-protected Mp3 or FLAC-files when you download them illegaly! WHY PAY FOR THE FILES WHEN YOU GET WORSE FILES THAN THE ONES YOU DOWNLOAD ILLEGALY? If CD dies, I'll die.

 

[Eternalnow]

I'm living in a nightmare. Do people actually want fucking bad quality writing-protected MP3-files which you anyway only can open with your fucking iPod? I mean, you get better quality AND not writing-protected Mp3 or FLAC-files when you download them illegaly! WHY PAY FOR THE FILES WHEN YOU GET WORSE FILES THAN THE ONES YOU DOWNLOAD ILLEGALY? If CD dies, I'll die.

WOW...thats all I have to say

 

[Klämrisk]

I assume prices are different then here in the US, but I get my CD's for pretty much the same price I'd be paying if I went with mp3's.

You lucky.... Here in sweden it's 3 or 4 times the cost of you want the real thing!

I still find it rather unfortunate that instead of new formats like SACD and DVD-A catching on, which imho is a needed upgrade to CD, we get stuck with a downgrade to CD. This is pretty much the worst case scenario in the works.

But stupid people controls the music industry, so.... GAH! FUCK MP3!
BE A LITTLE NICER TO FLAC! LOVE THE CDS!

 

[Eternalnow]

I can't wait for the day when all artists seize power for themselves and release their music themselves! I would happily pay for a Watershed superset consisting of the SE CD, the SE Vinyl and a huge booklet of art and band info - similar to what Radiohead and NIN have done.

 

[Klämrisk]

I can't wait for the day when all artists seize power for themselves and release their music themselves! I would happily pay for a Watershed superset consisting of the SE CD, the SE Vinyl and a huge booklet of art and band info - similar to what Radiohead and NIN have done.

MMmmm... taht would be great.....

 

[outerone]

I can't wait for the day when all artists seize power for themselves and release their music themselves! I would happily pay for a Watershed superset consisting of the SE CD, the SE Vinyl and a huge booklet of art and band info - similar to what Radiohead and NIN have done.

I started this thread partly out of the frustration that I know the Watershed CD is done and I cant have it for a few months because Im pretty sure the label decided the release date in June to give them time for all their promoting and what not. And yes if bands had more power to them we could have a more personal connection with the band when the band would be dealing directly to us with their music. We could get the music when it is done and promotion would be done later. That is what the Raconteurs did recently.

But as much as it seems like we will soon loose CDs forever and we will be left like ok men in the dust searching thew back rooms of music stores for some random CDs... I highly doubt this will happen. People are less likely to move away completely from a tangible object to nothing than they were from vinyl to cd. Im guessing the market will in the future be shared by both formats, mp3 and CD, which again should open up more doors for bands to distribute their music in new ways. The big label is dead for respected artists, the bands and artists with enough brains to figure out that they can have more power over their music will shift towards gaining more of this power.