Vivendi Offering MP3 Song for Sale 371
pmorelli writes: "Maybe there's hope for the media dinosaurs yet: According to News.com, Vivendi is teaming up with Maverick Records, MP3.com, RollingStone.com, GetMusic.com and MP4.com to offer a remix of a Meshell Ndegeocello track, 'Earth,' for $0.99 online. No restrictions, just a plain old MP3. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of her stuff, I just may pony up a whole buck to economically encourage this sort of behavior."
Re:Who? (Score:2, Informative)
In other news, REM releases a record in MP3 format (Score:2, Informative)
A full CD of remixes, with album art.
Not my taste in music, but its nice to see Stipey and the bunch practicing what they've preached in interviews with me and others.
In addition, REM did "pre leak" these songs on various peer-to-peer networks to see the rate of propagation.
This is the second time REM's put free tracks online for fans. The first was Peter Buck putting some tracks he did for a play's soundtrack up. In an interview last year he said he wants to do this more frequently with the "leftover" tracks from recording sessions.
This was covered in major media, but not as extensively as a one dollar MP3. Sad.
Ethan
emusic, for god's sake! (Score:4, Informative)
More often than not, they even have an entire artist's career, not just an album or two.
I'll don't understand why people are lining up to pay Vivendi $1 for one lousy track. If you're going to pay a major label (VivendiUniversal bought emusic a while back) your hard-earned cash to support a business model based around unencumbered MP3's, emusic seems like a better deal.
-Isaac
It's free if you're an Emusic subscriber (Score:5, Informative)
If you're not hung up on top-40, check out emusic.com - sign up for a year subscription at $10/month, or 3 months at $15/month; there's a 14-day free trial, and you can download:
- as many songs as you want (max 50 tracks during the free trial period)
- unencrypted
- with no special DRM
- and keep the tracks after you cancel your subscription. (They even tell you to keep the 50 tracks if you choose not to subscribe!)
They claim they split the revenues 50/50 with the artists. (even if you allow for some exageration here, it'd almost have to be a better deal than the few pennies an artist gets per CD track sold through traditional outlets...The only restrictions are:
- they ask that you not hog the system by mass-downloading everything; just grab what you plan to listen to now or in the near future
- and you are on your honor not to "steal" from them by sharing those files elsewhere
In other words, they are selling MP3's exactly the way we want to buy them, and trusting us not to rip them off, instead of imposing some clumsy technological constraints - just like any other honest business. (ok, I would prefer higher bitrate encodings, but so what? 128k sounds ok on my pc. I signed up, I sent them a long letter telling them what I liked about the service, and what I would like to see improved, including the option to pay a bit more to download better quality encodings. Who do you think they are going to listen to more - their existing, paying customer base, or people heckling them from the sidelines? [I got a personal response to my letter from their customer service. They didn't promise anything, but at least i know they heard me.])They don't have many huge names (probably the most famous contemporary group in their catalog is They Might Be Giants,) but they have an awesome collection of old jazz and blues collection, a good classical section, some really bizarro-but-intersting international stuff, and a bunch of small indie labels. (They claim over 200,000 MP3 tracks available, from over 900 different [mostly small] record labels) Oh, and some comedy too, like most of George Carlin's albums.
Sorry if I sound like a commercial - I'm just a subscriber who loves this service, and I don't understand why more people haven't signed up yet...
Re:Who? (Score:3, Informative)
Her debut release, "Plantation Lullabies" is a mostly funk/hip-hop crossover album, featuring her playing bass on most of the tracks in addition to singing. She is, without a doubt, one of the most solid funk bass players that no one has ever heard of. Prior to this release, she cut her teeth playing bass in the DC area for such progressive jazz luminaries as Steve Coleman.
Her second record, "Peace Beyond Passion" is more of the same, although many fans were a bit put-off by the heavy spiritual bent to some of the tracks. The album is seen as a bit preachy by some.
Her third album, "Bitter", is a very different animal. Somewhat less of a funk album, most of these tracks are slower, more organic, and feature primarily live musicians and less programming.
Several things to consider:
-the mp3.com song is a REMIX. Those of you judging her by this track are missing the point entirely.
-like her or don't like her, but be wise enough to recognize that she most definitely is NOT part of the "sound-alike" herd that the major labels have been shoving down our throats for the last few years. As a writer (and more importantly a PLAYER - you really need to hear her play bass) she's already worlds beyond the rest of the pop crowd.
But to really appreciate her, you need to see a live show. For her last three tours she's assembled one of the most ridiculous bands I've ever seen on any stage in any genre. Her drummer of choice, Oliver Gene Lake, is one of those skilled funk drummers on the planet. Her live shows are consistently some of the best musical experiences I've ever had, and her small crowd base means that she always plays intimate club venues.
If you like funk, you owe it to yourself to check out Meshell. She's one of a kind.
Re:And for an extra 25 cents... (Score:2, Informative)
Here's a link for her discography and info at All Music Guide [allmusic.com]
I've been following her music for several years. I really dig it. It's a fun fusion of funky baselines, smooth melodies, rapping from laid back to angry, and jazzy transitions. Lyrical content ranges from melancholy to nostalgic to sensual to angry "fight the oppressors" type stuff.
I like her first album, "Plantation Lullabies" [allmusic.com], best.