Are we really so dependent on internet based music stores that any artist or band missing from the store, regardless of their achievements or musical talent, is out of the loop? Out of date? Not with it? This is exactly the topic MacTalk Australia’s podcast team, episode 45 chose to cover with a result I didn’t quite find reasonable:
Angus Young, AC/DC’s lead guitarist has confirmed that the band’s back catalogue will not be available on the iTunes Store, stating that the works of AC/DC should be viewed as complete albums and that each album represents an era in the bands history.
I don’t see an issue with his statement. I’d be willing to bet that any AC/DC or Metallica fan would agree. You get the fans of a band who go out there, buy the album and listen to it top to bottom. Perhaps you don’t enjoy every track which is fair enough but you still bought the album and it’s cash well spent.
This is a general stance toward musicians from a fan base. The band has talent the listener can recognise and in some cases a level of respect from their fans for 30 years of working from rock bottom to the very top.
So, where do these guys, the podcasters of MTAU episode 45 pull the right to claim a band is “not with it” by a lack of presence on the iTunes Store?
First off, it’s just a store. It’s the same as any other store except with a few more restrictions and nothing is distributed in hard copy. (Hell, can you blame the artists for refusing their catalogue onto a store laced with DRM and license agreements?)
Secondly, the stamped compact disc version will end up averaging at a price of about $30 AUD on debut. This comes at a full quality uncompressed audio format that you could choose to import into your system at any bitrate, fully unrestricted. The same album on the store, a 128kbps DRM version will retail for roughly the same price, perhaps $5 knocked off in disc stamping charges. However you still pay a premium for the tracks in a limited bitrate DRM restricted version.
Their music will not be in the store. The artists have decided. The fan base is unaffected because they would have gone and bought the compact disc anyway. No point complaining that you can’t pick through the disc and pull certain tracks at a minimum to the artist that made the goddamn track in the first place (as if the RIAA & Apple don’t take enough out of iTunes Store purchases as it is).
Lack of tracks in the iTunes Store does not indicate a band that “isn’t with it”. If anything it’s a band that’s right on the button to sell their music in fully unrestricted high quality rather than cave to the industry heavyweights, load each track with DRM, strip the quality down and charge $1.69 AUD for it.
