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Friday Afternoon Diversion: Earth With Rings
Oh Steve. Steve, Steve, Steve. We had really hoped that with the new year you might finally catch up to current trends and we could put this column to rest. But, alas, your foot once again finds your mouth.
Now we understand that you are writing for the general populace, so some of your more obvious observations could be forgiven as trying to bring "mom and pop" into the digital age. But we just read your "Digital music taking root as CD sales slump" column dated January 10 -- which oddly only JUST made it into our RSS reader, so we're gonna assume The Trib is, even more oddly, holding distribution of your print column about the online world offline for a couple days before posting it, um, online. And Steve, even "mom and pop" could tell you the following statement that opens that column is beyond obvious.
It's looking more and more as though digital music, delivered mostly over the Internet, is headed for a marketplace victory. But the experience of some artists, including Radiohead, who have experimented in various forms of digital offerings, suggests there will be a price to pay, both in terms of revenues earned by artists and in the appreciation of the full-length "album."
Really Steve? Digital music is taking over? The idea of the "album" format is shifting? The industry needs to adapt to shifting revenue streams? Johnson then goes on to bullet-point a few blurbs about recent development in the music industry, but with a lede like that, who wouldn't be so insulted they'd immediately discount everything that follows? (O.K., we did read it, but the whole point of this column is that we read Johnson so you don't have to.)
You know what? We don't even have the energy to call you out on the invalid point you tried to make yesterday, wherein you posited the fact that Gizmodo acted like a bunch of dumbasses at the CES might reflect on all other bloggers all over the world. Right, because when the New York Times screws up we blame The Trib. Great point.
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While I agree with your regular criticisms of this guy, I wonder if you are not making too much out of this.
He writes: "It's looking more and more as though digital music, delivered mostly over the Internet, is headed for a marketplace victory." The key word is "victory," and despite the apparent majority preference for digitally-delivered music, recent developments, specifically about Radiohead, has made that "victory" seem more certain. I think that is his main point, and that he is correct without rehasing too much odd or obvious news.
The lede was not insulting, and I doubt it was insulting for the majority of Trib readers who--I am making an educated guess here--are not as intimate with digitally-delivered music as most Chicagoist readers are.
I think it's just such an over-obvious statement. I mean, digital music has been headed toward marketplace victory for a while now, and who hasn't written about the massive decline of physical music sales? And considering he's The Trib's internet critic, it seems silly that he opens his piece with such a painfully obvious statement.
Did this guy steal your girlfriend or something? I don't understand why you have such a hard-on to make him look bad when he's doing a fine job on his own. There are plenty of bad writers out there, many (most?) of them pandering to the lowest common denominator. Granted, you have been critical of other writers, but geez, live and let live already. So he makes (presumably) a decent living writing about old news as if he discovered it...the majority of the people I work with make decent livings being lazy and doing bad work. Karma will get them someday.
I see your point, but let me ask: It is more or less obvious now than, say, three or four months ago, that digital will score its marketplace victory?
I say yes, in part because of the Radiohead album, in part because of some recent corporate decisions and what I've read in earnings reports from some music companies.
If you say yes, then the lede is OK.
"But the experience of some artists, including Radiohead, who have experimented in various forms of digital offerings, suggests there will be a price to pay, both in terms of revenues earned by artists and in the appreciation of the full-length 'album.'"
I'm not even sure what the hell that means.
matilda, I think it's been evident, even to the general public, for much longer than that.
Tankboy: If so, then no would have paid much attention to the Radiohead "experiment" a few months back.
I am not sure what you mean by "general public," but, believe it or not, not everyone follows pop music and the music business on daily basis, and not everyone owns an MP3 player.
I think you are assuming too much on this one.
To be fair, that column is from January 10th... 2006.
The Gizmodo thing made me want to toss my computer. It shows the usual air in the nose snobbery that print media revels in when bloggers go astray. To be fair, it was a silly prank and pretty unprofessional but not exactly Stephen Glass.
Radiohead's experiment was an experiment in marketing, not distribution. Much like Wilco did with YHF, they used the free distribution of their record online as a way to promote the eventual CD copy of it, which debuted at #1. And they managed to make a tidy sum of money from it, too. It's the only time I can think of where someone made advertising into its own revenue generating stream.
So I don't know how that shows there's a "price to pay" unless the person doing the paying is us, not the artist. Esp. since Radiohead wasn't offering downloads of individual songs, just the full length album.
Thanks, for saying that Mr. Smith. The thing about the Radiohead deal that people don't really talk about is that basically all they did was get people to pay for a leak of the album. They were always going to release it as a physical object, and in all likelihood, the music would have hit the 'net first. I'd argue that the only thing Radiohead did differently was find a way to get (some) people to pay for a lower-than-CD-quality leak months before the "proper album" is actually released. Smart? Sure. Devious? Definitely. A new paradigm? Not so much.
Johnson says himself that he thinks the difference between bloggers and journalists is a false one, and he also writes about the general reaction from the blogs to Gizmodo's (stupid) prank. So you're somewhat mischaracterizing what he wrote.
"What does [isolated incident] say about [generic medium]" may be a silly argument, but you can't pretend that people don't make it every day, with regards to both blogs and the MSM (an acronym that gets tossed around every time someone takes a specific screwup and generalizes it across the board). Johnson may not be doing any of us a service by giving credence to such arguments, but he's responding to something that actually happens to both blogs and newspapers (people don't blame the Trib for the Times's mistakes, but they do blame Old Media). I think you're making something out of nothing.
I didn't read his column but he was probably responding to the recently released record sales figures from 2007, which showed a wider gap than ever.
I read it in an AP article too. Maybe you should start an AP watch.
Oh, wait...that's what Chicagoist is!
Pow! Yowza! That one was free, the next will cost you. I'm here all night folks.
Not to mention that the sarcasm reflects badly on blogs in general.
Sorry it was WIRED who published the article on declining record sales last week, not the AP.
Whoops I mean it was an AP article WIRED published. More coffee is in order.
It's looking more and more as though digital music, delivered mostly over the Internet, is headed for a marketplace victory.
Maybe I'm an idiot. Maybe I'm a Luddite. But how else is digital music delivered? Are there mail-order mp3 catalogs I'm unaware of? If most digital music is delivered online, how is the rest of it disseminated?
ontology: cell phones.
the thing that i find funny about these sort of threads (and i've been plenty guilty myself) is how they end up totally highlighting the blogger/columnist/pet peeve in question. all of you went and quoted steve-o and read his article and stuff. the trib must love it, despite the grrs.
Tankboy;
This article is like last week you saying you got a secret email about Radiohead touring the states this summer, but it was an actual press release that every media outlet got.
Erm, Freak Deaky, I don't ever remember saying the email i got was "secret" or "special" or anything of the sort.
And I'm not sure how this has anything to do with that, other than the fact Johnson mentions Radiohead.
Ok, you said CRYPTIC EMAIL, which means
http://chicagoist.com/2008/01/09/radiohead_comin.php
from dictionary.com
cryp·tic /ˈkrɪptɪk/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[krip-tik] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective Also, cryp·ti·cal.
1. mysterious in meaning; puzzling; ambiguous: a cryptic message.
2. abrupt; terse; short: a cryptic note.
3. secret; occult: a cryptic writing.
4. involving or using cipher, code, etc.
5. Zoology. fitted for concealing; serving to camouflage.
–noun
6. a cryptogram, esp. one designed as a puzzle.
If you're going to call Bullshit on another writer, be prepared to be called out on your bullshit.
The fact is, you tried to make your Radiohead post out to be something of top secret information when in reality it wasn't. It was meant for the mass populace, you wrote something we already knew, Radiohead was going to tour America and made it out like you were sharing something "CRYPTIC"
Mr. Deaky, since I assume you got the same email I did, then you would realize "abrupt; terse; short: a cryptic note" fit it's structure pretty well.
Now you can relax.
The Freaky Deaky was a highly sexualized dance localized to Detroit in the '70s. People got shot dead over it! The novelist Elmore Leonard also titled one off his books Freaky Deaky.
At least, that is the way I heard it.