Cloud sounds: What the latest tech revolution means for the future of making music

Part of the reason things have been a bit quiet here at The Musically Inclined lately is because for the past three and a half months, I've been working on a giant feature piece.

It's a beast weighing in at roughly 4,300 words, and I'm pretty proud of it.

In short, it all started when my editor asked if I could do something with "the cloud and music production." It ended with me finding a Paris-based company called Ohm Force that makes a digital audio workstation called Ohm Studio, which functions like Google Docs. Multiple users can edit the same project at the same time. They're sharp guys and I hope more people tune into what exactly they've accomplished.

Beyond telling their story, I also got to talk to a lot of folks in the industry who have opinions on what it could mean to be able to collaborate without being in the same room, and with an immediacy and intimacy not found in merely swapping tracks via Dropbox or YouSendIt.

This article even took me to Boston, where I met up with the Ohm Force guys at the Advanced Audio  and Application Exchange, a first-year conference focused on future tech in music.

The week that followed was a blur. I wrote a lot (read: A LOT) and tried to keep my head in Boston.

Anyway, I promise it's an easy read. I had an immensely good time reporting and writing this, and I  hope you check it out.

After all, every time you read a long form, a writer gets his/her wings.

READ ME!

Thoughts on the Cloud

After eons of waiting for someone to launch a cloud-based music player, Amazon swooped in and introduced their Amazon Cloud Player. There was much rejoicing. I for one, as well as my hard drive, anxiously await the day when we can turn everything over to the Cloud. It's exciting, it's convenience we've never known.

Fast forward a bit, I've finally gotten the chance to jot down some initial thoughts, plus a few others that have come to mind after signing up and uploading my iTunes.

+ Paying for storage as needed is so much more palatable than signing up for another monthly bill.

+ The fact that the music you buy from Amazon doesn't count against your storage is genius.

+ Weak internet connections make the Cloud Player all kinds of annoying.

+ This could be an iPod-killer. Think about it. If we all eventually get Smart Phones capable of streaming from the Cloud, why have an MP3 player?

+ Not being able to upload all those early DRM protected iTunes purchases hurts. Currently my Cloud Player is missing 137 songs including "Smooth" by Santana with Rob Thomas and the ever-delightful "Stacy's Mom" by Fountains of Wayne.

+ I definitely think that iTunes waited too long and over-thought this whole thing. It seems like most of the chatter revolved around them being the first to launch a streaming music service, especially after they bought out and shut down LaLa.com a while back. That's a whole lot of momentum flat out lost.

More to come.

"The Boom Box Stages a Comeback"

I really want this to be true (because it's ridiculous) despite the fact that it's contrary to most music-listening trends within the past... well, really long time. (Dawn of the Walkman?)

Wired posted a rundown of the latest boom boxes that will "have you jamming like it's 1989," and really, who doesn't want that? It's sort of a skeletal tech article-- no explanation for said comeback, but for some reason the idea is intriguing. Perhaps the boom box is at the point where archaic is morphing into novel and mostly ironic. It's a hipster dream. Clunky-chic, shall we say?

Beatles on a Stick

Looking for a Christmas gift for your favorite Minimalist/Beatles fan? EMI is releasing the entire re-mastered, 14-album Beatles collection in stereo on-- get this, on a flash drive this coming Dec. 8th. Yes. A flash drive. An Apple-shaped flash drive, to be exact.

Can this possibly be the same thing? Granted this is about as close to digital as EMI is going to allow the Beatles catalogue to get any time soon, but seriously, a flash drive? This feels wrong.

Obviously I still advocate the tangible album, be it cd or vinyl, but this is way beyond that. Album art in itself was integral to the outward signs of the band's growth. Meet the Beatles was miles away from the Revolver cover, and that's part of the experience of the band as a whole-- it's the progression. Digital tracks exist in a vacuum, I don't care how iTunes is starting to package digital liner notes. The Beatles on a flash drive are The Beatles without context.

Fortunately, only 30,000 flash drives will be made, so it will probably only be the die-hard Beatles fans who spring on it, but I don't think it bodes well.

I cringe to think that some 12-year-old kid's first experience with The Beatles would be getting handed a flash drive with everything already on it. No context, no collecting-- it's too easy. The rest of us had to wait for holidays and birthdays to get new albums. Or, if you're old enough, you had to wait for the band to release something new.

Is it not sweeter that way?

A Word About Pandora

Through some stroke of irony, I can be a bit slow to get on board with tech trends, so this might be old news. Recently I've started using Pandora, which is internet radio, in the realm of Last fm. etc.

The gist is that you sign up and create stations based on bands or songs that you pick. There's no guarantee that you will hear that band or song-- that's how they deal with licensing issues-- but you'll hear music that is similar in some way.

It's radio, in other words. Turn to the station that plays the music you like. Where this differs though, is that there are no obnoxious disc jockeys or advertisements to deal with, only a box ad awkwardly shoved in the margin.

Terrestrial radio is not what it used to be. Many once counted on it for exposure to new music. These days playlists are so shallow, radio doesn't completely fulfill that function as well as it used to, plus song ids are few and far between. Services like Pandora are just so freaking convenient, how can you compete? And it's free, unlike XM and/or Sirius which require monthly fees plus the initial investment to get the radio.

Don't like a song? You can skip three times in an hour. Want more info on what you're hearing? There's a tab for that. You can "thumbs up" a song, or "thumbs down" it and never hear it again. Not a bad deal.

And the catalogue? Seemingly endless. 50s/60s oldies formats have been fading out in the past few years in favor of classic rock of the late 60s and 70s, but the internet can provide a selection of music that doesn't have to exist merely because it's moderately to wildly popular. Even if the Greatest Generation isn't on Pandora or the like, their music is. (True story: I have a station seeded to The Four Freshmen.) In a respect, that's a point of comfort, that maybe older music won't disappear as the years continue to pile up.

There are many reasons to check out Pandora. Give it a try. A word of warning though, I've barely opened my iTunes in the past two weeks. Just sayin'.

Regarding the Way We Listen to Music

Try this staement on for size. I heard someone say it last week.

"If you're just listening to your iPod, you're wasting time."

Yikes, right? At first I was a little startled, but after a few seconds it hit me that she was dead on and I hated so much to admit that there's truth in that sentence. Part of what gave me pause stemmed from my last review for Twisted Ear. There's an unusually high level of intellect put into TE reviews, I feel, so when I started writing for them in June, I changed my methodology for reviewing an album. Overarching statements are important. It's not just about the album itself but how that album fits into society as we know it. Andrew Bird's Noble Beast made me think about how little patience we have for the intricacies and delicacies of nuanced music. With Bird, it's not nearly enough to hit "play" and dive into a magazine. At least once, you have to focus completely on what's coming in through your headphones or you will miss everything that's important.

In the review, I talked about how these days, the average person does not have that luxury. Listening to music is not a sole pursuit anymore. I wrote about it because I see it in my own life. The only time I have guaranteed for music-listening is the time it takes in the morning to straighten my hair. In the interest of hearing what I have frequently called my second pulse, I way the trade offs. I can give my music half my attention or none at all.

Sad, right? I can tell you exactly when I got off track. Sam's Town came out in 2006 and the only time I had to listen to it was while I was writing a weekly completion grade poetry response for an English class. Normally I'd never have divided my attention like that, but Sam's Town (as much as I'm not sure if I should admit it) was the last album that had a true hold over me. Some or nothing. No choice.

It's not just me either. When was the last time you saw anyone just sitting there with their headphones? I can't even think of the last time I saw anyone using anything beyond laptop speakers or earbuds.

Maybe it's the iPod's fault? When the latest technology was the record player, you better believe that the lawn wasn't getting cut. Or what about those early portable cd players that skipped every time you breathed too deep? I had one of those. I didn't leave the edge of my bed for 45 minutes for fear of disturbing the play. Sure, the argument could be made that Walkmen didn't skip, but still portability seems a little like the devil sometimes. It's a blessing and a curse, or worse-- a compromise.

The Noble Beast review sparked some comments, mostly dismay. What does it say when you've listened to an album twenty times and still don't know the lyrics? Back in the day we knew every word, every beat, every artificially placed breath on the track. Maybe that's why music meant more. You had the time to read into it and project your life all over the album. To this day, I marvel at how my hate for John Mayer turned into respect because I was felt totally defined by Heavier Things. That was a long time ago.

So where does that leave us? The workload's got no end in sight. The "To Do" list keeps growing. But maybe, if we think about it hard enough, we'll try harder to carve out the time. Or maybe we'll just continue to multitask our way into numbness.

Mmm...New iPods

Apple revealed the newest fleet of iPod nanos a couple of days ago. Admittedly, they look pretty sweet. I guess they're pros at making us all in to suckers for advertising. It's funny though, every year I feel a little older when the new generation rolls out, but realistically there's no logical reason to update on a yearly basis. Just after I bought my mini, Apple started making iPods with color screens and video capabilities and it really felt like there was a huge line between the new technology and my passé mini. Since then I don't think that there have been any monumental advances. Every year it's pretty much the same design stretched, compacted, and/or flatened. These babies have a few more tricks, like sideways album flow, Genius (a feature that puts together playlists of songs that go well together), and Shuffle activated by actually shaking the iPod. That last feature doesn't sound like a good idea. In fact, I can see it as being a real problem depending on how sensitive it is to the shakes. That's a Consumer Report waiting to happen.

Well, at least they're an attractive bunch. Odd years tend to be...eh, I've noticed, but the colors are so cranked up, you almost want to buy one just to look at it. The best part of all though, is definitely the price drop. $200 gets you 16GB. My mini cost that much for a fourth of the gigs. I think Steve Jobs robbed me. In any case, if I were to upgrade, this would probably be a good year to do it... I'm just waiting on that Consumer Report.

Changing the Way We Hear Business

A couple years ago I griped about how it's so hard to take the plunge and buy an album. I don't really care to waste $14 on something that's got one good track and the rest of it makes me want to use it as a coaster. If only there was a way to hear the other tracks on an album without the awkwardness of standing in a bookstore with those gigantic headphones, pretending to be so engrossed in the album artwork because there's nowhere else to look. Fast forward slightly to one afternoon when I was killing time on my computer and saw AOL was having a "listening party," the gist being, they were featuring a couple albums about to be released and by featuring, I mean you could hear the whole thing for free. Nice. I actually bought one of the albums I heard that day. It was Rock Kills Kid. Good stuff, slightly negative at times but otherwise fun to listen to. Anyway, I figured that was a pretty good way to promote and for people like me who are always trying to keep the music machine going, it was the perfect tool in expanding the collection.

The reason I bring this up is because technology is blowing my mind. NBC announced just recently that it was pulling its shows off of iTunes to put them on their web site. Now, what is true of all three major networks, is a person can watch whatever they want whenever they want and don't after to pay more than about a 1.5 minutes of attention to commercials. It's no longer a novelty trick of ABC, that's just the way things are. I think it's great and along similar lines, being able to visit a band's website or myspace and hear multiple tracks has been a major blessing, especially in writing this blog. Fans can come from odd places, going off of recommendations, or whim and maybe they like what they hear. The result? CDs, merch, and maybe I want to catch them when they come to my town.


It's no secret that the world has gone digital. Everyone's seen the charts. Downloads are up, everyone else is praying to their higher authority for salvation. I'm just hoping that no one is going to screw things up. As dopey as it sounds, I'd be pretty ticked if I was losing money because some idiot is too cheap to pay 99 cents. That's all I'm saying. Sure, I still love the feeling of personally engaging in my epic CD shrink wrap battles, but I won't blindly buy a CD without some kind of insurance that I'll like it,so hearing album cuts prior to purchase has become important to me. We're moving to a pretty cool direction with this kind of accessibility (and the way I see it, culture sharing). Let's just all try to behave ourselves, okay? Please?