Music is too expensive. Electronic music especially.

See, most stuff on iTunes is 99c per song. That’s about $1.25 CDN. But I still can’t think of very many songs I’ve heard that are so good that I’d pay that much money for them. I’d pay $0.50, sure. In fact, at that price I’d be convinced to buy at least some music and maybe even a lot of music instead of no music whatsoever.

Well, I ordered Derek Webb’s new album. But that’s because Webb is amazing in ever sense of the word.

Here’s a list of demands, that, should you and your music store want to see me as a customer, you will need to meet:

• High quality copies of songs. I don’t want some lame (not as in the codec) 128kb file with the cymbals all compressed to crap. I want a VBR MP3 with a median bitrate of 192kb so I can safely say that it’s as good as what I’d rip from a CD or get over the internet.
• No restrictions. I want to make three redundant copies, move it to my iPod, move it to my Zen, move it to my (gag) Zune, use it on Linux, use it on Windows, use it on BSD, use it in my car, in my toaster, in my stove, in my car, in my house, as a soundtrack to my home videos, play it in iTunes, dbAmp, WinAmp, Amarok, iTunes, WiMP, or anything else I can reasonably do under fair use laws.
• Give me at least some excuse for liner art. Lyrics, pictures, a package of something or other for me to look at. Then I won’t have to go to some lyrics site that’s, you know, illegally copying the lyrics anyway.
• Distribute via something other than direct download. Use a modified version of BitTorrent if you have to. I’ll bear the cost of distribution if it’ll cut some dollars off my cost per song.
• At least give me the option of flat-rate pricing. Let me dump some money into my account, and download away like a good consumer.
• Don’t treat me like a consumer.

Come on, that’s not so hard, is it?

Tags: geekery, ideas, music