The End of the B side

When I read that the record companies had an issue with iTunes, I had to laugh. This goes into the “That ship has sailed” file.

If there is anyone currently in the music business that believes physically recorded music will be anything but a boutique niche market in 10 years they should be turfed out and replaced with a teenager. Their only hope of controlling the distribution (and therefore profits) of their product at all is to devote their considerable legal muscle to combating illegal file sharing. A music company arguing with iTunes is like a writer arguing with Gutenberg. There may be, as the poet said, “negative externalities” associated with mp3 distribution, but those are the new challenges of the business.

What they’re really complaining about is that iTunes destroys their right to distribute music that sucks. That’s it. They’re like students who’ve always been graded on a curve walking into a class with absolute standards. It spoils the fun.

Vinyl was honest, in that respect. The “B” side was going to be a little funkier, less “radio ready.” There were people who prided themselves on their extensive knowledge of and attachment to ‘B sides’. But the transition to one-sided media (occasional video clips and computer elements aside) made it possible to call an “album” a collection of songs that were not at all ready for primetime. CD purchasers became, more or less, resigned to the fact that they’d have to sit through, or fast forward, a mass of material that was principally designed to get the package up to weight.

iTunes completely undermines this as a strategy, and the music people are upset. If there’s only one good song on the album, you only buy the one, and YOU get to pick which one it is.

By economic plebiscite, the artists are getting the feedback they’d never gotten through focus groups… they should thank downloading for that.