From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V3 #295 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Friday, October 10 2003 Volume 03 : Number 295 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] eMusic Changes [Elizabeth Brion ] [loud-fans] From the "how the hell did this happen?" file.. [Phil Fleming] Re: [loud-fans] From the "how the hell did this happen?" file.. ["Joseph ] Re: [loud-fans] eMusic Changes [Dave Walker ] [loud-fans] So I says to eMusic, I says... [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] eMusic Changes On Thursday, October 9, 2003, at 08:57 AM, Aaron Mandel wrote: > > From the look of the new plans, they're still trying to make money by > getting people to pay for downloads they don't use [...] Right. That would be me. I had an almost worthless cable connection for nearly two years (disconnected every 10-30 seconds) when I lived in Tinytown and didn't have any options. I made a conscious decision to keep up my eMusic subscription because I wanted them to thrive, even though I did not download a single track the whole time. There have been many, many other months during which I downloaded nothing. I'm finally getting a CD burner for my birthday this year - that would be November 3 - and I was planning to finally start taking advantage of my subscription then. None of this is eMusic's fault, of course - I'm just whining. There are any number of plans they could offer that I'd be fine with, even if it wasn't quite as utopian as the current one, but I'm having a really hard time justifying the value/price ratio when I can get almost any used CD from my workplace for $5 or less. The real advantage was being able to check out other people's recommendations risk-free. Oh well. Hey, here's something about a CD that's not on eMusic: Anyone else gotten into the new Terence Trent D'Arby? It's probably my album of the year at the moment - although that's mainly because I haven't heard anything that's TOTALLY blown me away this year - or last year, really. (Disclaimer: I'm not claiming there were no great albums during that time; I'm just saying I didn't manage to hear any.) A lot of soul, a lot of psychedelic pop, and a little funk - kinda Prince-ish in its sensibilities. His voice sounds amazing, and while I think it's longer than it needs to be (19 songs, 78 minutes), it's still working for me. You can stream the whole thing at http://www.sanandapromotion.com/, should you wish. E ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 17:08:23 -0600 From: "Roger Winston" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] eMusic Changes Aaron Milenski on 10/9/2003 2:45:36 PM wrote: > That's OK. I keep reading it waiting for a full-scale argument to break > out, but you're all disappointing me. I've mailed a plastic-eating virus that targets Buffy DVDs to Jeff's house. Does that count? I'm still waiting for Dave Walker to weigh in on the eMusic controversy... Latre. --Rog (Jeff, be sure to open that package with the Al Gore return address right away!) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 16:41:31 -0700 (PDT) From: Phil Fleming Subject: [loud-fans] From the "how the hell did this happen?" file.. Check out #38. http://www.billboard.com/bb/charts/hot100.jsp Phil F. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 16:55:09 -0700 (PDT) From: "Joseph M. Mallon" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] From the "how the hell did this happen?" file.. On Thu, 9 Oct 2003, Phil Fleming wrote: > Check out #38. > http://www.billboard.com/bb/charts/hot100.jsp The video w/ Rachel Hunter didn't hurt... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 20:04:46 -0400 From: Dave Walker Subject: Re: [loud-fans] eMusic Changes On Thursday, October 9, 2003, at 07:08 PM, Roger Winston wrote: > I'm still waiting for Dave Walker to weigh in on the eMusic > controversy... Heh... I don't see LoudFans mail until I get home from work. In addition, smoe.org is now subscribing to a blacklist service that bounces all mail from servers in dynamic ranges, so I'm on my third try sending this message. Um, well, I'm bummed about it. When I was laid-off from work last year, there were many intervals when that $10 a month I paid Emusic was the only money I got to spend on new music. I don't mind the new price in theory -- 25 cents a track is great -- _for an a la carte service_. If they paired their current selection (assuming they retain their current label signings and continue signing new labels of equivalent quality and variety) with an intelligent buying interface like Apple's or BuyMusic's they could have a great specialist service for people like the ones who have been Emusic subscribers on this list. As it stands, though, the subscription service plans really break the service for someone like me. The album that really sold me on the service, my very favorite album from 2002, Ilkae's _Pistachio Island_ is IMPOSSIBLE TO DOWNLOAD under the basic subscription plan. How f*cked up is that? What Chris Prew said pretty much hits home for me: "I'll miss being able to download an entire album just because the band name was cool, etc." The new pricing structure (assuming I stick around -- I haven't decided yet) means I'll only ever download sure things. There won't be any more taking chances on outside-my-stock-genres stuff. I would never have downloaded Opeth's _Blackwater Park_, Mono's _One Step More And You Die_, all those wacky old Cantebury-school prog records on Voiceprint, all that cool skronky stuff on Atavistic, and dozens others I could list. The joy of immersing myself in the unfamiliar and discovering diamonds is gone, and I doubt I'll ever see its like again. For me, it was never "let's see how many metric tons of music I can download for $10 this month", it was more like "it costs me next to nothing to maybe find my next favorite band or label. Let's go clicky clicky through the new release list. Hey, Aaron really liked this hiphop record (queue). Stewart wrote nice things about this jazz disc (queue). Jeffrey and Roger dueted in the shower to this band (queue)." Damn. I'd heard of Merck before (on another list), but it took downloading the first 5 or so releases they posted on Emusic last year for me to realize how much I _loved_ what the label was doing. Under the new plan, I'd download a couple of albums that are getting good reviews from the usual suspects, or new releases by proven bands, but where's the fun in that? -d.w. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 20:22:22 -0500 From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: [loud-fans] So I says to eMusic, I says... We'll see how/if they respond. Interesting that there's no "ticket ID" number... - ----- Forwarded message from jenor@uwm.edu ----- Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 18:03:25 -0700 From: jenor@uwm.edu Reply-To: jenor@uwm.edu Subject: General Feedback To: service@emusic.com Ticket ID: First Name: Jeff Last Name: Norman Email Address: jenor@uwm.edu Phone Number: Drop Down: Other Feedback - ---------------------------------------------- Contents: About the "new" eMusic: First, I understand the inevitability of ending the all-you-can-eat approach. However, I wish that, instead of instituting the new policy by fiat, you had perhaps polled subscribers on what options they would most like to see, and then, before implementing whichever of those changes were the most practical, letting us know. Perhaps your financial situation made this impossible. At any rate, since this will be a new way of doing things, I assume you understand that there will, inevitably, be bugs to be worked out - and therefore, more changes down the road. I hope you take the opportunity to get subscriber feedback in that situation. Regardless, here are some ideas: * Institute a second intermediate tier: The jump from the $15 plan to the $50 plan is extreme. Something in the middle (with corresponding download allowance), around $20-25, might well attract customers who feel limited by the $15 plan but unlikely to make the $50 plan economically viable for them. * Take account of albums: Currently, the plans allow for X downloads of *songs*; this can mean an entire album can range from a single download (one long track) to more than anyone in the lower-priced plans can download in a single month (anything with lots of tracks - as with albums featuring Stupid Indexing Tricks like having the final track be divvied into 50 continuous four-second "songs"). Keep the per-song download rate, but also say something like "an entire album's .emp file counts as X tracks (ten? twelve?), an entire EP's .emp file counts as Y tracks (five? six?), regardless of the actual number of tracks included." Plenty of subscribers still consume music by the album (myself, and most the people I know). * Carry over unused downloads from month to month, at least within some limits (say, three months): We pay in advance; we feel ripped off if we pay the same, and you get the same, and we can't get our money's worth. * Allow per-track overages: Ideally, you'd allow this, and each track over the plan's total would be set at a per-track rate *higher* than that plan's per-track rate.... This would encourage people who consistently overshoot their allowances to pay the next rate up. I suspect that more customers would end up at higher rates if they knew they weren't quite as locked in. * Commit to maintaining the Premium level: Your current Q&A page implies that if we don't sign up for that service now, we won't be able to sign up for it in the future. I assume it's priced so that it still makes you a profit; so I'm not sure why you're limiting it (unless you think making it limited makes it more attractive to the Collector Geek crowd...). Some positives: you've eliminated the time commitment, which as far as I can tell means people can, say, quit for a month if they're going to be out of town, decide to pay the higher rate for a month in which lots of new albums they want come out, etc. You still allow unlimited downloads of tracks we've paid for, there's no DRM bullshit attached, the files are encoded at higher quality than those of competing services, and they're CD-burnable. Plus, despite irregular adds to your selection, you still have a very extensive library of tracks to choose from. Finally: Improve customer service. I've known lots of people who feel that you either don't respond, or respond pissily. There's a lot of resentment floating around the web about these changes - what are you going to do about that? Thanks for your response. Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.4a) Gecko/20030401 - ----- End forwarded message ----- ..Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ :: You can't imagine how hard it is to mail-order fifty red :: Maglites when you're a duck with no numeric street address :: --glenn mcdonald ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 23:53:47 EDT From: AWeiss4338@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] From the "how the hell did this happen?" file.. In a message dated 10/9/03 7:47:50 PM Eastern Daylight Time, spin_jen@yahoo.com writes: > Check out #38. > http://www.billboard.com/bb/charts/hot100.jsp > > This is not meant to offend Springsteen fans. Speaking as someone who lives in the heart of Springsteen country, Monmouth Co. NJ, it's damn cool to see a band from Jersey have a hit who doesn't sound like Springsteen. Or Bon Jovi. Both of them are so hyped here, so now it's time the rest of the world found out that NJ has many other good bands. Andrea ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 00:31:36 -0400 From: Stewart Mason Subject: Re: [loud-fans] From the "how the hell did this happen?" file.. At 04:41 PM 10/9/2003 -0700, Phil Fleming wrote: >Check out #38. >http://www.billboard.com/bb/charts/hot100.jsp Easy. It's a damn catchy song with a very funny video that's pretty much ALWAYS playing on MTV Hits (alternating with Outkast's "Hey Ya" and Hilary Duff's "So Yesterday") every single time I turn on that channel. More power to 'em. S NP: new Sterolab EP, the title of which I forget and the tray's currently stuck under a big pile of LPs so I can't look at it ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 23:44:34 -0500 From: steve Subject: [loud-fans] Attention iPod People (Dark Side) There is an "Apple Event" scheduled for next Thursday. The wording of the invitation is leading to speculation that it has something to do with iTunes for WinTel. That's more than two months before the end of the year, so it's looking like no RDF will be required. - - Steve __________ People have a stereotype about what animation is, and don't recognize the possibilities. Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away" had the most remarkable command of narrative I've seen in a very, very long time. This is just the best-told movie story of the year, enormously inventive and satisfying and meticulous. To me, it completely revivifies the value of real narrative in a movie. - Scott Rudin, producer of "The Hours" ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V3 #295 *******************************