this kyle guy sounds like an absolute genius. the fray would be wise to take his advice. :-)

i agree upon your assessment of the right to meddle once you spent your hard-earned (if you're like me and eric!) money on a project. you have bought the rights to do with that music what you will (for your own personal use of course).

eric, in a certain light, i can see a parallel to what you do in building websites. you can build a site that looks great on your screen in your browser with your resolution, but any consumer can change any of those options and totally mess up what was your "vision" for the site. you have to compromise your vision somewhat for something that is compatible for all users. similarly, i have to put out there what I want it to sound like, knowing that each consumer is going to think differently or ignore it all together.

as far as choosing abbey road, i certainly could have come up with a better "concept" album, but, hey, i like the beatles. what can i say? and i like side 2 of that record a lot. :-)

(incidentally, i didn't mean to bold that many words, just I).

I won't slag your coding if you won't comment on my guitar technique (which, by the way, you'll never hear, so that takes care of that).

I had never thought of the parallel between album craftsmanship and web design, but it's a valid comparison.

Given that, I think you musicians need to start creating albums in which the tracks work together no matter how the listener arranges them! ;-)

Thanks for that link -- it's great to hear a musician weigh on these new matters relating to downloadable music and iTunes.

I caught another posting by composer Shelly Palmer, about DRM. He was surprisingly against it, for reasons of creative freedom:
here

Thanks for the post.

- Phyllis

I was hoping that Kyle would contribute to this discussion and am not surprised at what he has to say. He must be some sort of genius.

I'm late to the discussion because I went out this morning to buy a package of needles for my Hi-Fi.

Even when I was a youngster, I never wanted to buy a 45-rpm. If I couldn't buy the whole album, I did without. But then I never skip ahead in a book or read the last chapter first.

I do listen to music that I've downloaded to my computer, and sometimes I select shuffle, but only within a particular artist's discography.

actually, i would think there's a certain freedom with vinyl LPs, when they were the main medium of listening to music. you've got two sides to create a mood or feel, but one overarching record to make a statement. the physical record itself lends itself to be played straight through. a listener has more patience with 6 songs per side than a full 12-song album with no break.

interestingly enough, there are a LOT of bands (mostly indies), that still press vinyl records for serious music fans for just this reason. some people prefer the way 6 or so great songs one side of a record can make you feel. like side 2 of led zeppelin IV!

Oh, and I think Kyle's choice of Abbey Road is actually a good one to illustrate the whole album vision idea. You're right, Eric, to point out that it was meant for continuous play. But, but, but, I have never heard the continuous tracks from side 2 of Abbey Road played together on the radio (except during a Beatles special program). The idea of them existing as a single piece of music (the intent of the artists and producer) is lost because of the tracking.

Plus, I also am a huge Beatles fan... so I got that goin' for me.

Phyllis, I read Shelly's post, and I think he's taking a realistic and practical stance with regards to DRM. It sounds like he's not against the theory, just the harmful way it's been implemented. And he's right -- it's a new world, and the musicians (and studios and labels) who can't or won't adapt, won't survive.

He must be some sort of genius.

Well, he did make the switch from Windoze to Macs, so you may be onto something there.

Deborah, I'll try to shield you from the Wrath of Kyle, once he finds that you're using shuffle mode. ;-)

Is your hi-fi mono, or that new-fangled stereo? (It's just a fad; it will pass.)

Kyle, I thought the move back to vinyl was for the unique audio aspects. It's a little naive to think that just by pressing an LP, you'll maintain the integrity of the flow, given how simple it is to digitize that album (and I'm sure Pro Tools let's you add back that "vinyl warmth" ;-).

Jim, you've opened a whole other can of worms by bringing radio into the discussion. Stop it.

eric - true, i neglected to mention the audio aspects of vinyl, which are probably the main reason for using vinyl, i just know the the interesting layout (basically two EPs) is another - if lesser - reason.

i don't actually mind shuffle that much, especially since you're usually using it for background music, and occasionally i'll put my entire iPod's catalog on shuffle if i'm doing other stuff, but i mainly meant for the purpose of sitting down to listen to music. wrath subsided.

See, that's what I've been saying all along. You gotta buy the whole album (well, okay, "gotta" is a strong word...let's just say I "prefer" the whole album). To buy singles is like buying books by the chapter. ;-)

But radio is.... oh, nevermind.

To buy singles is like buying books by the chapter.

And I wish I could do this with some authors. Stephen King, for exåmple. You really only need his last chapter. "Need" being relative, of course.

Often times, when I'm listening to music on my iPod or computer and as a song is ending, I'm already picking up the first words or beat to the song that comes next - or so it used to anyway... I'm a digimusic convert through and through, but still I cut my teeth on vinyl and the pattern of songs from records is permanently rooted in my teensy monkey cortex.

(I even get a little nostalgic about how "interactive" album-based music used to be. Ya had to fidget with the player and clean the records, etc. Listening to music as a teen was more of an activity unto itself than it is now.)

Of course, it may very well be that newer artists are so much a part of the current culture that they don't make "albums" to be listened to in a particular sequence, but instead simply craft little isolated islands of individual songs. I sure hope not tho...

Buying music by the song is yet another sad, sad indicator of these hyperactive, impatient, everybody-and-their-dog-has-ADD times. The world may be moving at supersonic speed, but that doesn't mean that we necessarily have to keep up that pace all the time.

Rob, I think Kyle made it pretty clear that musicians still put plenty of thought into the sequence of songs on their albums -- and he's about as digitized as they come.

You cleaned your records as a teen? Did you pick up your socks as well? ;-)