Is it April 1st on the iTunes Music Store?
I noticed an interesting album on the iTunes Music store today: Audiophile Reference I, apparently “An Essential Tool For Gauging The Performance Of Your System”. While I often rag on so-called audiophiles, the kind of people who spend thousands of dollars on cables thinking that they’ll make their stereos sound perfect, the presence of such an album on the iTunes Music Store is a joke. After all, the music is compressed, so it’s not going to tax any true audiophile system. (Yes, compression is not a bad thing, but audiophiles certainly don’t want files compressed at 128 kbps.)
It kind of makes you wonder about all the “long tail” dross that’s showing up on the iTunes Music Store. Sure, it doesn’t cost Apple much to add albums, and if they sell a few times, that’s fine. But when you look closely, especially at the classical music inventory, you’ll find a very strong presence from some, well, second-rate labels with mediocre recordings. And in some cases, the marketing for such recordings puts them in the best-seller lists. (Why people buy a Beethoven album just because there is a naked woman on the cover, with a violin over the good bits, surprises me…)
I’ve been planning to analyze this a bit more, so stop by soon for a no-holds-barred analysis of classical music on the iTunes Music Store.
Kirk wrote:“(Why people buy a Beethoven album
just because there is a naked woman on the cover, with a violin over the good
bits, surprises me…)”
I know the album cover of
which you speak. It’s funny that you mention that cover.
My wife was
working at Tower Records in Boston when the album commented upon
came
out. Without even listening to it, she wrote it off as probably mediocre, but
undoubtedly marketing genius. She
pointed it out to me and I forgot all about until a year ago.
I was sampling
music at magnatune.com when I found (and purchased) a
wonderful recording Bach violin concertos by Lara St. John. In searching
Amazon for more from her, I happened across that cover again.
Why
would people buy either the Bach solo works or Bach concerto albums is
simple: they are very tastefully done. The cover on the solo works album is
nice artwork. Here’s the artist’s description of her own album
cover:
“The CD is of solo violin Bach, which is essentially
a
performer and a violin. Thus the spartan black-and-white, sunlit photo, with
no jewelry, visible clothes, or anything to distract.”
Lara
St. John took a lot of heat from critics about that cover.
Although she was 24 when the cover was shot, some people thought she
looked like a child and that the photograph was inappropriate.
She has a
very
well-written website (warning: plays
music) on which she posts links to the criticism and her http://www.larastjohn.com/
essays/aboutalbumcovers.html”>response. It’s worth checking out.
Sadly, Lara’s latest release, Re: Bach, is a crossover attempt that puts
classical music to a rockin’ backbeat a la Hooked on Classics – I’ll pass on
that.
That’s not the one I’m talking about – check the top 100 in the iTunes classical
store and you’ll see what I mean. As I check, it’s no. 26, and it’s called Classical –
The Greatest Moments Ever, and contans such top-ranked international
ensembles as the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
No, Lara’s quite good. Here’s my review (from 2002) of her Bach concerto album:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/May02/Bach_Lara.htm
Ok, I see now. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
I can’t understand the point of that album cover. It’s pretty sad.
Thanks posting the link to your review of Lara St. John’s Bach concerto album.
Nice job on the review.