Rob Manuel, in praise of CDs:
CDs don’t pause between tracks like your iPod/Spotify. This matters on albums that are meant to run together. Say Dark Side of the Moon. These records are broken by this [MP3] tech. If I was Roger Waters I’d take a shit in Apple’s office and refuse to stop shitting until this was fixed.
There are some more sensible reasons as well, but as a Mike Oldfield fan, I love this one. Of course Oldfield got around this by making Amarok just one track…
Nobody wants to acknowledge how sausages are made, so i can;t help thinking that Michael Robertson decided to illustrate the financial mudslide that online music streaming sites are on by comparing services like Spotify to a Hot Dog stand:
Such economic demands [go read the article, basically give us more money than you bring in from subscribers or else] may be imaginary for the hot dog business, but they are the stark reality that every digital-music subscription service such as Spotify, Rhapsody, MOG, Rdio, and others must confront. These details aren’t well-known because digital music service deals are always wrapped tightly with strict non-disclosure agreements.
For the first time, people are talking, and these previously secret demands are being made public. The specifics are even more onerous than the hot dog example cited above. Together they doom online audio companies to a life of subjugation to the labels, as you will learn below.
Doom and gloom at GigaOM.
