Michael Dwyer
Monday is vinyl night at my house. Yeah, real old school.
It may have been some deep-seated ironic impulse that made my friend Richard kick off one recent evening with This is Tomorrow by Bryan Ferry.
It was as good a start as any. For the next few hours, cardboard record sleeves, red wine and informed commentary passed around the living room as the hi-fipopped and crackled like the shared fireplace of prehistoric times.
Then came the heresy."
Hey, check out my new ringtone," said Rich, whipping out his Sony Ericsson W880i mobile.
The cosy analog mood of the evening was suddenly split by the piercing shriek of an MP3 sound file tortured through a speaker the size of a mosquito.
The song was cool - Get it On, by Nick Cave's new band, Grinderman - but the difference between my record player and Richard's mobile digital apparatus was like a lullaby being severed by a dentist's drill.
Nobody's trying to turn back the clock. Vinyl is dead and the MP3 may be crushing the CD into shards of landfill. But can this shrill mobile system really be the future of music consumption?
That future is now, according to one mobile outlet I visited the next day. "Listen to how loud this one goes," the giddy sales assistant cooed, unleashing a screech that made my teeth ache. A 4GB memory card can handle 1000 songs, she exclaimed over the din. "Now, if you want a really loud one �" Louder. Smaller. More songs.
That's progress, as yesterday's mobile phone transforms into the portable music player of tomorrow.
But who's driving the revolution here? Not musicians, surely, and not music fans, either - at least not the kind who sip red wine and listen to old Bryan Ferry albums.
Any major shopping mall has the answer. At my closest, there are a staggering 14 mobile phone outlets, not including several electronics dealers and department stores with phone counters.
A larger-than-life poster of the Wolfmother guy stands sentry at the Vodafone shop, spruiking 500,000 songs for sale at vodafonelive (vodafone.com.au). The Telstra store promises discounted album downloads at $15 from bigpondmusic.com.
The Optus shop has its own free music magazine on the counter.
Inside are interviews with Avril Lavigne and the Doors, an SMS competition to win Good Charlotte tickets and invitations to browse 400,000 songs at the online MTV Music Store.
At the 3 counter, a salesgirl pulls an $1100 Nokia N95 from her pocket and shows me how to download Delta Goodrem's new video for $1.99 from Planet 3 Music Store (what, only 300,000 tracks?).
It's telling that Nokia, the world's biggest phone seller, now sees itself as a major player in the music marketplace. The company launched its online music store last month with a couple of million songs (it's all about quantity these days).
David Watkins, Nokia's regional director of multimedia business, is keen to confirm the marriage of music and mobile phone technology, if only as a detail in a larger push to complete mobile internet access."
I think everyone understands that digitalisation of music has completely changed the industry and the music business is looking at opportunities for its future," he says.
'WE BELIEVE people will use what they previously called their mobile phone (he prefers 'multimedia computer') as their preferred access medium to the internet. And if it's their preferred digital medium, then they are doing their digital music on it."
Purely at a gadget level, there's obvious appeal to phones such as Nokia's N series, Sony Ericsson's Walkman range and Apple's infamous iPhone, to be launched in Australia next year: it's a telephone, web browser and media player in one sexy gizmo.
But as music players, these merged devices currently all share the same problems: price, battery life and storage capacities all compare poorly to existing MP3 players.
Infinitely more complex are the issues concerning how the music finds its way into your gizmo. Today, the most common way is free and easy: "sideloading" CD tracks and MP3s you've acquired elsewhere using Bluetooth or a USB connection.
If you want to download direct to mobile, the best rule currently is don't. It's still mostly slow and expensive because of timed network costs and mobile broadband limitations. So buy it on your PC, then transfer. Mac users? Sorry, you're unwelcome at most of the online stores mentioned above.
But let's get real here. At best, about 15 per cent of music fans buy music online. Of these, about 80 per cent do so at Apple's iTunes site (6 million songs). Their phone options are limited to high-end models that play AAC files, Apple's proprietary MP3 variation.
But all of these numbers, compatibility irritations and market allegiances are shifting fast. The old music business - dominated by major labels and resistant to change for so long - is now awash with new corporate partnerships crucial to its survival in the new digital realm.
Somewhere in the vast grey zone between Bryan Ferry and your mobile phone are legions of middle men - telecommunications companies, internet service providers, digital distribution agencies, "technology solutions providers" - all forging secret handshakes over a multitude of copyright, technological and financial complexities.
From a music company point of view, the mobile future appears so volatile and unpredictable that one major label's digital operations manager opted not to answer questions for this story, even after they were emailed for scrutiny by the international office. "Don't want to affect the share price!" was the paranoid explanation.
Back in the real world, this "Wild West land grab" is simply no place for music consumers yet, according to English music biz veteran Stuart Knight. For 20 years he's worked for record companies, artist management and CD retail. Today he's a partner in Xtaster, a marketing company that uses a digital social network to monitor the musical tastes of Britain's youth.
"There's very little sound evidence to back up a lot of claims as to how the future of the music industry is going to develop in relation to mobile phones," he says.
"Mobile companies have spent billions acquiring and building and marketing high-speed 3G networks and, frankly, they've enjoyed mixed results. They've got to persuade folks to download tracks onto their phone and they've got to persuade them to get these phones in the first place."
Mr Knight believes it will take time before format and delivery methods are standardised and advises consumers to beware the echoes of the Beta mishap that burned VCR buyers in the '80s.
He also suspects that 99 cent music downloads will never make anybody's business viable unless they also have a stake in the gadgets that consumers need to play them. This, he says, is what record companies need to invest in if they are to survive.
"The reason Apple has cornered the market is because it makes the iPod," he says. "The hardware supplements the revenue (from iTunes). If you had to rely solely on the revenue that comes from the downloads, you'd be broke."
All this seems a long and bothersome way from the effortless magic that occurs between a simple music fan and an old Bryan Ferry record.
Martha Ladly sang backing vocals for Ferry in the early '80s, after she'd left Martha and the Muffins to work for Peter Gabriel's Real World Multimedia division. Today, she's a professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design where her specialty is interactive communication and mobile experience design.
"There's such a divide between the people who are making the devices, the people who are providing the service to the devices and the (artists) who are making stuff," she says. "The lack of communication in the industry is actually appalling.
"I think there are way better things to do with this new communication model than to serve broadband content. That's not what it's meant for. What they are doing is saying, 'How can we translate what already exists (i.e., music, video, internet) into this new medium?' They're not saying, 'OK, what does this do really well and how then do we create something that works?' "
And don't get her started on the sound quality issue.
"My phone is a Nokia with some ringtones designed by (Japanese artist) Toshio Iwai but, honestly, to hear the amazing things he's done on this little speaker . . . it drives me mad. It's not what it's meant to be. But I'm not certain people are interested in amazing sound any more."
Daniel Segal, from Ericsson Australia's new media division, confirms her suspicions. "Based on the demographic that tends to be taking up digital content, sound quality is not as important as it used to be," he says. "If you're a 14-year-old who has a mobile phone that can receive MP3s . . . that quality, in our research, is certainly sufficient."
Ironically, Mr Segal also has ample experience at the highest level of music production. As a former sound mastering engineer with a resume that includes Pete Townshend and Duran Duran, he admits he struggles with much of what he hears today.
"But Mr and Mrs Joe at home probably only spend $100 on their hi-fi anyway," he says. "It's probably not as good as your iPod plugged into a couple of Bose speakers."
Or your iPhone, or your Sony Ericsson W880i, or your Nokia N95 . . .
None of the kids I speak to outside my shopping mall can afford those kind of gadgets. But they are perfectly satisfied with the few MP3s that fit on their older, cheaper models. Leon, 17, transfers them from CDs or from his friends' phones. Sometimes he plugs it into speakers or headphones at home.
Harry and George, both 14, get songs illegally from the online file-sharing service LimeWire. "Why would you buy music?" Harry asks. "We got phones. We're not stupid." Nor are any of them interested in buying ringtones when they can sideload their own. "Five bucks for 20 seconds?" scoffs Mark. He's 17, and he's not stupid, either.
Most of these kids have iPods or MP3 players as well. Kate and Alessia, both in their early 20s, aren't interested in a phone and music player in one device because they know they'd be left with neither when the battery fails.
But ultimately, as the 14 dealers inside the mall know, they'll all buy whatever is made to look sexiest when the time to upgrade comes. That's the way it works with mobile phones, just as it did with CD players, cassette decks, Betamax video recorders, eight-track cartridge and stereo hi-fi systems.
Speaking of which, I had a drink with Richard the other night at a bar in Swanston Street with Roxy Music album covers on the wall and a DJ spinning Serge Gainsbourg records.
He laughed when I told him I was writing about his Grinderman ringtone. He'd just seen a vinyl copy of the album in the record shop window downstairs. "I'd buy it," he said, "if I had anything to play it on."
Sphere: Related Content
Monday is vinyl night at my house. Yeah, real old school.
It may have been some deep-seated ironic impulse that made my friend Richard kick off one recent evening with This is Tomorrow by Bryan Ferry.
It was as good a start as any. For the next few hours, cardboard record sleeves, red wine and informed commentary passed around the living room as the hi-fipopped and crackled like the shared fireplace of prehistoric times.
Then came the heresy."
Hey, check out my new ringtone," said Rich, whipping out his Sony Ericsson W880i mobile.
The cosy analog mood of the evening was suddenly split by the piercing shriek of an MP3 sound file tortured through a speaker the size of a mosquito.
The song was cool - Get it On, by Nick Cave's new band, Grinderman - but the difference between my record player and Richard's mobile digital apparatus was like a lullaby being severed by a dentist's drill.
Nobody's trying to turn back the clock. Vinyl is dead and the MP3 may be crushing the CD into shards of landfill. But can this shrill mobile system really be the future of music consumption?
That future is now, according to one mobile outlet I visited the next day. "Listen to how loud this one goes," the giddy sales assistant cooed, unleashing a screech that made my teeth ache. A 4GB memory card can handle 1000 songs, she exclaimed over the din. "Now, if you want a really loud one �" Louder. Smaller. More songs.
That's progress, as yesterday's mobile phone transforms into the portable music player of tomorrow.
But who's driving the revolution here? Not musicians, surely, and not music fans, either - at least not the kind who sip red wine and listen to old Bryan Ferry albums.
Any major shopping mall has the answer. At my closest, there are a staggering 14 mobile phone outlets, not including several electronics dealers and department stores with phone counters.
A larger-than-life poster of the Wolfmother guy stands sentry at the Vodafone shop, spruiking 500,000 songs for sale at vodafonelive (vodafone.com.au). The Telstra store promises discounted album downloads at $15 from bigpondmusic.com.
The Optus shop has its own free music magazine on the counter.
Inside are interviews with Avril Lavigne and the Doors, an SMS competition to win Good Charlotte tickets and invitations to browse 400,000 songs at the online MTV Music Store.
At the 3 counter, a salesgirl pulls an $1100 Nokia N95 from her pocket and shows me how to download Delta Goodrem's new video for $1.99 from Planet 3 Music Store (what, only 300,000 tracks?).
It's telling that Nokia, the world's biggest phone seller, now sees itself as a major player in the music marketplace. The company launched its online music store last month with a couple of million songs (it's all about quantity these days).
David Watkins, Nokia's regional director of multimedia business, is keen to confirm the marriage of music and mobile phone technology, if only as a detail in a larger push to complete mobile internet access."
I think everyone understands that digitalisation of music has completely changed the industry and the music business is looking at opportunities for its future," he says.
'WE BELIEVE people will use what they previously called their mobile phone (he prefers 'multimedia computer') as their preferred access medium to the internet. And if it's their preferred digital medium, then they are doing their digital music on it."
Purely at a gadget level, there's obvious appeal to phones such as Nokia's N series, Sony Ericsson's Walkman range and Apple's infamous iPhone, to be launched in Australia next year: it's a telephone, web browser and media player in one sexy gizmo.
But as music players, these merged devices currently all share the same problems: price, battery life and storage capacities all compare poorly to existing MP3 players.
Infinitely more complex are the issues concerning how the music finds its way into your gizmo. Today, the most common way is free and easy: "sideloading" CD tracks and MP3s you've acquired elsewhere using Bluetooth or a USB connection.
If you want to download direct to mobile, the best rule currently is don't. It's still mostly slow and expensive because of timed network costs and mobile broadband limitations. So buy it on your PC, then transfer. Mac users? Sorry, you're unwelcome at most of the online stores mentioned above.
But let's get real here. At best, about 15 per cent of music fans buy music online. Of these, about 80 per cent do so at Apple's iTunes site (6 million songs). Their phone options are limited to high-end models that play AAC files, Apple's proprietary MP3 variation.
But all of these numbers, compatibility irritations and market allegiances are shifting fast. The old music business - dominated by major labels and resistant to change for so long - is now awash with new corporate partnerships crucial to its survival in the new digital realm.
Somewhere in the vast grey zone between Bryan Ferry and your mobile phone are legions of middle men - telecommunications companies, internet service providers, digital distribution agencies, "technology solutions providers" - all forging secret handshakes over a multitude of copyright, technological and financial complexities.
From a music company point of view, the mobile future appears so volatile and unpredictable that one major label's digital operations manager opted not to answer questions for this story, even after they were emailed for scrutiny by the international office. "Don't want to affect the share price!" was the paranoid explanation.
Back in the real world, this "Wild West land grab" is simply no place for music consumers yet, according to English music biz veteran Stuart Knight. For 20 years he's worked for record companies, artist management and CD retail. Today he's a partner in Xtaster, a marketing company that uses a digital social network to monitor the musical tastes of Britain's youth.
"There's very little sound evidence to back up a lot of claims as to how the future of the music industry is going to develop in relation to mobile phones," he says.
"Mobile companies have spent billions acquiring and building and marketing high-speed 3G networks and, frankly, they've enjoyed mixed results. They've got to persuade folks to download tracks onto their phone and they've got to persuade them to get these phones in the first place."
Mr Knight believes it will take time before format and delivery methods are standardised and advises consumers to beware the echoes of the Beta mishap that burned VCR buyers in the '80s.
He also suspects that 99 cent music downloads will never make anybody's business viable unless they also have a stake in the gadgets that consumers need to play them. This, he says, is what record companies need to invest in if they are to survive.
"The reason Apple has cornered the market is because it makes the iPod," he says. "The hardware supplements the revenue (from iTunes). If you had to rely solely on the revenue that comes from the downloads, you'd be broke."
All this seems a long and bothersome way from the effortless magic that occurs between a simple music fan and an old Bryan Ferry record.
Martha Ladly sang backing vocals for Ferry in the early '80s, after she'd left Martha and the Muffins to work for Peter Gabriel's Real World Multimedia division. Today, she's a professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design where her specialty is interactive communication and mobile experience design.
"There's such a divide between the people who are making the devices, the people who are providing the service to the devices and the (artists) who are making stuff," she says. "The lack of communication in the industry is actually appalling.
"I think there are way better things to do with this new communication model than to serve broadband content. That's not what it's meant for. What they are doing is saying, 'How can we translate what already exists (i.e., music, video, internet) into this new medium?' They're not saying, 'OK, what does this do really well and how then do we create something that works?' "
And don't get her started on the sound quality issue.
"My phone is a Nokia with some ringtones designed by (Japanese artist) Toshio Iwai but, honestly, to hear the amazing things he's done on this little speaker . . . it drives me mad. It's not what it's meant to be. But I'm not certain people are interested in amazing sound any more."
Daniel Segal, from Ericsson Australia's new media division, confirms her suspicions. "Based on the demographic that tends to be taking up digital content, sound quality is not as important as it used to be," he says. "If you're a 14-year-old who has a mobile phone that can receive MP3s . . . that quality, in our research, is certainly sufficient."
Ironically, Mr Segal also has ample experience at the highest level of music production. As a former sound mastering engineer with a resume that includes Pete Townshend and Duran Duran, he admits he struggles with much of what he hears today.
"But Mr and Mrs Joe at home probably only spend $100 on their hi-fi anyway," he says. "It's probably not as good as your iPod plugged into a couple of Bose speakers."
Or your iPhone, or your Sony Ericsson W880i, or your Nokia N95 . . .
None of the kids I speak to outside my shopping mall can afford those kind of gadgets. But they are perfectly satisfied with the few MP3s that fit on their older, cheaper models. Leon, 17, transfers them from CDs or from his friends' phones. Sometimes he plugs it into speakers or headphones at home.
Harry and George, both 14, get songs illegally from the online file-sharing service LimeWire. "Why would you buy music?" Harry asks. "We got phones. We're not stupid." Nor are any of them interested in buying ringtones when they can sideload their own. "Five bucks for 20 seconds?" scoffs Mark. He's 17, and he's not stupid, either.
Most of these kids have iPods or MP3 players as well. Kate and Alessia, both in their early 20s, aren't interested in a phone and music player in one device because they know they'd be left with neither when the battery fails.
But ultimately, as the 14 dealers inside the mall know, they'll all buy whatever is made to look sexiest when the time to upgrade comes. That's the way it works with mobile phones, just as it did with CD players, cassette decks, Betamax video recorders, eight-track cartridge and stereo hi-fi systems.
Speaking of which, I had a drink with Richard the other night at a bar in Swanston Street with Roxy Music album covers on the wall and a DJ spinning Serge Gainsbourg records.
He laughed when I told him I was writing about his Grinderman ringtone. He'd just seen a vinyl copy of the album in the record shop window downstairs. "I'd buy it," he said, "if I had anything to play it on."
No comments:
Post a Comment