I guess that I am in the minority now, but I really don't look forward to the supposed death of musical medium in any other way than downloads. People have talked about it for a long time now, but I am still not fond.
As a musician I will agree that it's easy to get your music out there to people, but in another way that's really all that it is. All it is is the music, and nothing else really. I'm also unsure about the whole buying a single business now as well. I've bought and you want me to buy a song from that album again? It's not even like the days when you had more than one song on a single - now with downloads it is invariably just a single song. I will admit that I did buy a Paul McCartney single today (actually that was Saturday) that was just one song for 78p, but I saw that as different because it isn't from an album. That is unless you count it being from a film that will no doubt receive a soundtrack release, but I'm not sure what the rest of the soundtrack is.
As discussed before though, Macca seems to be more interested in the reissue of his back catalogue, I'm guessing during which he is probably stockpiling new material to select from for new albums after these reissues. A smart move that.
I suppose that I could be seen as hypocritical that I am releasing a Special Edition of my own set A New World Order onto iTunes as soon as I can afford it, but that's mainly because you can get over eighty minutes worth of material out that way, which wouldn't be possible on a single disk set, and there were songs that I didn't have space for. With the One Day set that I'm finishing soon (I promise), I was sort of thinking of a book type insert for the CD, as in eight pages that would include the lyrics and the credits.
MP3 files don't give credits to people. My iPod doesn't even tell me who wrote the songs and, as a kid, I was fascinated by who did what.
I actually think that The Beatles reissues recently gave the chance for them to give credit to others who took part, such as famous guests like Eric Clapton on While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones playing saxophone on a couple of songs. There are also not so famous ones such as the later famous producer Chris Thomas played keyboards on some White Album songs including harpsichord on Piggies. Who those people were and what they did always intrigued me.
Anyway, I like all the cover stuff with the information, artwork, pictures, lyrics and all that. I remember looking at the cover to Sergeant Pepper's trying to work out who everyone was, and being fascinated when people would tell me who was who.
I love the covers to Jimi Hendrix Experience albums, Iron Maiden, Yes, Marillion, and so many. In the UK, we always had great covers to records, and I think that we really were at the forefront of cover art.
Now there are people who used to do this sort of thing for a living, but no longer can because it is dying out seemingly. There are also whose who I think could be in that business now, such as my friends Dean Leivers (an amazing photographer) and Matt 'Skip' Butcher, who is a great artist.
To me it is a shame that there is no longer going to be this medium, because I remember a lot of these experiences and I am sorry for those who won't get the chance to do the same.
Thank you for reading. Please take care.
15 May 2011 (40 years, 5 months, and 19 days old)
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