New Thoughts
The music industry's shift to digital has opened up a quandary of legal, moral, and technological issues. Record labels want to maintain the status quo, artists want to secure their livelihood, and consumers want to pay as little as possible (free, or next to free seems to be the sticking point).
No solution is ideal for all parties, but iTunes looks to be the best of the lot. With global sales topping 200 million, the iTMS experiment is already an undisputed success.
Canadians have had a fews months now to try out our very own version of iTMS. Responses have been good and bad, but the service improves daily. Let's take a glance at the progress so far.
Digital Music in the Great White North
The service was launched with little fanfare. Rob and I joked about the "announcement" email sent out by Apple a week or so after we put up our own post on the subject. This is woefully late to build a proper marketing buzz. My solution would have been to send an email at least to each Canadian who registered an iPod a week before the service launched, targetting an invested market with expendable income that is composed of early adopters. And where was the Pepsi bottlecap campaign leading up to the launch a la last Superbowl?
Also, I don't know if the Canadian content issue was a major factor in delaying iTMS Canada, but BOY did they push it down our throats when it did launch! I felt as though I had been handed a steaming mug of maple syrup instead of the Americano I had ordered.
All the user playlists submitted followed this embarassing pattern: Avril, Barenaked Ladies, Celine, you can fill in the rest...
I have a healthy amount of national pride, but this is an area where Canadians do well already; why showcase Canadiana at the exclusion of international (read: mainstream=American) content? especially when you need to assure the paying public that the service is reflective of their musical tastes.
Thankfully, as predicted in our first post on iTMS Canada, the iPod levy has been dropped in our great nation.
Selection is Good, Like in the Supermarkets
Those of you who tried out the service in those dark, early days will recall the shamefully small selection of music available for purchase. The selection continually improves, but still fails to satisfy my tastes. What is the hold up? Do the record labels really flip a coin to decide which of their imprints will be distributed? If it's licensed digitally in the USA and licensed in hardcopy in Canada, why isn't it at iTMS Canada?
Server issues be damned. Apple had ample time and experience with the original iTMS to prepare for any ammount of traffic the Canadian populace could dish out. Even with licensing concerns there is no excuse for not having at least 90% of the tracks sold at the US store here. It's not as though the files haven't been digitized already.
18 Genres, 100 Million Tracks. Do the Math.
Only 18 Genres? Gap carries more cuts of jeans than that! That last one is a guess, but really. There is no music fan in the world who would classify English Beat and Nirvana in the same genre. Parliament and Usher? C'mon! iTMS should have twice that number of genres. That would still not satisfy everyone, but it's a start.
iTMS could learn a lesson from Download.com Music. Their business model is entirely different, but their classification of music is beyond reproach. They have "Shibuya Kei" for goodness sake (albeit with one band represented)! Their system, with cascading branches of sub-genres, allows for shallow and deep browsing, satisfying everyone.
iTMS' iTunes-inspired browser is a sad attempt at a browsing system. Without a comprehensive list of top-level genres and a healthy assortment of sub-genres beneath, each attempt at browsing returns an unwieldy number of results. I tried counting the artists in R&B/Soul. I stopped after 300, and that was at "J." Sub-genres such as Funk, Motown, Northern Soul, and Top-40 R&B would do wonders to delineate the search process.
Apple can look at this financially. Buyers purchase what they can see. Like the carefully arranged aisles of Vancouver's A&B sound or Virgin Megastore, retailers know that featured items move faster; that's a given.
In the digital realm, there is no limit to the amount of "shelf space" you can have. If iTMS had 36 genres instead of 18, there would be 36 genre top-pages to entice shoppers. Even they must realize that the lion's share of sales are made there rather than in the labyrinthine depths of their browser interface.
Neither is the search feature the answer. This only returns the exact title the browser seeks. The record store analogy holds true: people will buy what perceived experts suggest. The "people who purchased this also bought" feature is a handy if not original compromise.
The Long Tail
Here's something to support my cries for more variety:
This article dubbed, "The Long Tail" outlines a fascinating theory about the potential co-existence of hit-based and niche/underground music markets. Cable television allows for the co-existence of the Apprentice and the Bass Master, why not music?
Alternative, Not the Genre
What other choices do we have? Not many.
Other Canadian services exist such as FutureShop's Bonfire, which is not Mac-enabled, and the Telus service PureTracks (which is actually the same thing as Bonfire). No Mac support and WMA = no iPod. No thank you.
I've mentioned AudioLunchBox before. I like this service a lot. The price is 99 cents US a song, just like the original iTMS and the selection is fairly good for some things. Alternative and Indie fans such as myself will enjoy the array of offbeat selections available through this service. Mainstream fans and those in need of the latest releases will not fare so well. Give it a try. With a little searching you'll easily find five or six albums to fill one of their excellent Lunch Cards.
Subscription-based services such as the new Napster are striving to make headway. I haven't tried Napster 2.0, but paying and not owning does not sit well with me. With 71GB of MP3s already, I don't really need another 10,000 tracks on demand. I buy less than ten albums a year, which works out to less than the $10 a month Napster charges. To each her own, as it were.
Satellite radio is another option I don't give much credence to. Like Napster, you don't own the music. I also like the music library philosophy of iTunes/iPod. Carry it all because you never know when you'll want to hear that song.
Some cynics would respond with piracy. You can't beat free, but you also get what you pay for: Mislabeled files, audible pops and cracks, and low bit-rates are only a few of the headaches I've faced in my own history of illicit downloading behaviour. Those days are over for me. 99 cents CAN is the right price.
Conclusions
iTMS Canada = B- Okay, but getting better.
Pros: Professional service, good selection of mainstream music, iPod/Mac friendly
Cons: Lacking in niche music, music classification could use improvement, slow in releasing certain titles to Canada, more expensive than free
iTMS and AudioLunchBox do not tie you down with any subscriptions; a combination of these is likely the best thing for intermitent music buyers (the former for mainstream, and the latter for indie).
I'm certainly not typical of the music going audience so disregard my above cautions freely (all my friends do!). The best thing to do is to try these things out. MP3 players can be had for $50 CAN these days, so what are you waiting for?
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As I wrote this, I've listened to:
Air, Allison Kraus, Allen Clapp, Aphex Twin, April March, Cassius, Yazoo, Duran Duran, the Bavarian Radio Chorus performing Mozart, Dannii Minogue, Travis, Pilate, the Proclaimers, Lauryn Hill, Beth Orton, Basement Jaxx, the Dandy Warhols...
My library will continue playing for 45 days, 2 hours, and 45 minutes without repeating. Isn't iTunes grand?