May 31, 2006

Hillary, it seems, likes "basic rock song structures," "repetitive melodic phrasing," and "extensive vamping." Pandora predicts she would enjoy various '60s girl groups and '70s soul singers: Gladys Knight and the Pips, Carla Thomas, and the Velvelettes. The service can be a bit uncanny. One of its first recommendations on the Hillary station I created was "Girls Can't Do What the Guys Do," by Betty Wright, a feminist-minded '70s soul artist. This was followed by Barbra Streisand's rendition of David Bowie's "Life on Mars," a deeply unfortunate recording, but one somehow indicative of the present predicament of the Democratic Party.

In point of fact, I doubt that the relentlessly driven Hillary Clinton spends much time listening to music of any kind. Condoleezza Rice, by contrast, who recently revealed her musical Top 10 to Bono when he guest-edited The Independent newspaper in Britain for a day, clearly loves many kinds of music. For Condi, who was trained as a classical pianist, the playlist is an opportunity to show that she is not as uptight as she sometimes seems. In addition to Brahms, Mozart, and Mussorgsky, she reveals that she likes to work out to Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" and loves "anything by U2." Aretha Franklin's "Respect" gets another vote, along with Kool and the Gang's "Celebration," and Elton John's "Rocket Man," which the secretary of state says reminds her of her first boyfriend. Hmmm. Pandora doesn't do classical, but based on her pop choices, Secretary Rice responds to "disco influences," "a busy horn section," and "groove-based composition." Radio Condi is a lot more fun than Radio Hillary.

Last year, the president also revealed part of the playlist of his iPod, which he listens to while mountain biking. It includes "My Sharona" by the Knack, "Centerfield" by John Fogerty, "Brown-Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison, and music by the honky-tonk singer George Jones. Unlike Hillary and Condi, this all sounds pretty uncalculated. Bush doesn't worry about being politically correct or care what other people think of him. He likes to listen to white guys singing country and rock and doesn't care if Jerry Falwell objects to some of the lyrics. According to Pandora, Bush likes "mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation," "meandering melodic phrasing," "major key tonality" and "a smooth male lead vocalist." It is recommended that he try Van Halen and Jimi Hendrix as well as Billy Ray Cyrus and Conway Twitty. You could wait a long time for Morrissey or Neil Young to surface on his radio station, and Pandora was wise enough not to suggest the Dixie Chicks.

May 25, 2006

As a private firm, eMusic doesn't break out its financial information, but it's clear that its subscription model is working. In the 18 months since the relaunch, the company has clawed its way to the #2 position among digital download services (this does not include streaming music). Pakman claims that eMusic has 12 percent of the market compared to Apple's 61 percent, and that his company has now sold more than 60 million songs. Since eMusic does not sell individual downloads but only monthly subscriptions, its members download a lot of music when compared to iTunes, for instance. As Pakman puts it, "An iTunes customer downloads one song a month, on average; an eMusic customer downloads 20 songs a month, on average."

The subscriber base has also grown from "the low five figures" to 175,000, and has an average age of 39. That's unusual in a music business that generally caters to a young audience, and eMusic sees its willingness to appeal to the 25+ demographic as one key to its success.

May 18, 2006

The iPod offers such an embarrassment of choices regarding file storage and playback that I had to begin by discarding quite a few of them as irrelevant to a discussion of its fidelity. That's not to say that 96kbps MP3 and AAC, for example, aren't useful space-saving options; simply that they represent sonic compromises most readers of this magazine wouldn't tolerate even while jogging...

Things are somewhat better at 128kbps in both MP3 and AAC, but neither cuts the mustard for critical listening at home. MP3 robbed Steve Swallow's pulsing bass lines of dynamics and punch on the Carla Bley album, while blunting the shimmer of the brass overtones. AAC fared slightly better, offering better bass response (although it was still pretty lightweight compared to the original CD) and slightly more extended HF (again, shelved down in comparison to the CD).

Surprisingly, upping the bit rate to 160kbps did not result in major improvements for either format. Bass impact remained MIA in MP3, and the upper frequencies sounded strident, with that unmistakable "too much compression" punchiness. AAC again sounded marginally better, although Bley's big band still seemed flattened and lacking in dynamic variation.

The audiophile in me began to pay attention at 192kbps. Both MP3 and AAC began to exhibit a small degree of soundstaging, albeit not with great amounts of front-to-back dimensionality or layering. MP3's highs began to lose their stridence, and AAC sounded fairly detailed and revealing.

The compressed formats began to show some real promise at 320kbps. Definition, detail, and soundstaging were all impressive, and high-frequency response was almost liquid in its lack of edge effects. At this rate, differences between the two formats jumped into sharper focus: MP3 made transients "splashy," while AAC just sounded anemic compared to the original. With both formats, dynamic variation was considerably reduced compared to the CD.

Best of all -- and, to my ears, completely indistinguishable from the original CD -- was AIFF. Dynamics were impressive, imaging was nuanced and detailed, and the frequency extremes sounded extended and natural. On my reference rig, I could listen with immense pleasure for hours on end to files ripped in AIFF. In fact, I did.

Ah, some of you are saying, but what about VBR? Variable bit-rate formats seem to offer extremely satisfying sound and show a great deal of potential, but those options deserve greater exploration in a dedicated comparison.

May 16, 2006

...for we fans who already own all the songs that were on previous albums, it's kind of mean to make two of the special acoustic tracks available as Album Only, meaning we have to buy the whole $13.99 album (not the old $9.99 standard, nor the cheaper $11.99 version of this record just to get them. The other new songs we can buy for 99 cents so no biggie there. Hey, at least the old songs are remastered (like it makes a difference on the lower-fi 128kb-encoded AAC tracks that iTMS sells anyway). The CD is cheaper at $12.99, but doesn't have the last two acoustic tracks. It might be appropriate to say Arrrgh!
-- iTunes review of Best of Chris Isaak by "luc..."

May 15, 2006

May 12, 2006

CD's and films both rely on captive audiences; you've paid your money, so you'll sit still until the end. By contrast MP3's are more like television shows than films: they have to keep you entertained, or you'll click over to something else. If the last track on "10,000 Days" -- it's called "Viginti Tres," and it's essentially five minutes of digital groans and sighs -- were available as a free download on the Tool site, even hard-core fans probably wouldn't bother with it. Sometimes it's easier to pay attention once you've paid money.

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Flat-fee downloading works best when an album's tracks are roughly equal in length and importance. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, who only recently signed a deal with iTunes, have a new double-CD, "Stadium Arcadium" (Warner Brothers), consisting of discs named "Mars" and "Jupiter." (Sounds as if someone narrowly avoided a lawsuit from John Gray.) Maybe it's a coincidence, but the album is surprisingly iTunes friendly: the structure is loose and the songs are pretty evenly weighted; few grand epics or wispy interludes. Fans can pick and choose, downloading the album piecemeal or compiling favorites to turn the album into a playlist.
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...that's one of the pleasures of CD's: imperfect control. Sure, you could program your CD player to skip your least favorite tracks, or rip the whole thing to MP3's. But sometimes it's easier just to put it in and press play, even if that means you end up hearing some tracks more than you might want to. In one online review of "10,000 Days," a blogger dismissed the final track: "Listened to it once, and that'll probably be the last time." Wanna bet?

May 11, 2006

May 04, 2006