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| Media,
Richard Young,
20 January 1999 |
Rating: F5
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Anyone with Internet access will no doubt be aware of the recent furore surrounding a certain bit of freeware. Napster calls itself an "online music community" and gives the user the ability to search for and download specific mp3 music files, which are then stored in a library that other Napster users can access for as long as you are online. Other features include a number of music related chatrooms, and the ability to scan other peoples libraries and keep a list of favourite users. The music industry is no doubt jittery at the prospect of punters not bothering to buy Oasis’ latest release, but waiting until somebody uploads it and then getting it from Napster.
Interestingly, it is the artists with the most amount of money that seem to be making the biggest fuss. Metallica are currently threatening to personally demolish the computers belonging to Napster users who download their music. Madonna’s record company are incensed that her latest album mysteriously appeared in someone’s Napster library two weeks before it was officially released. Of course, the makers of Napster are defending their actions by claiming that they intended the program to be used to give unsigned artists a potential audience of millions by uploading and swapping their own mp3s. So is this the end of commercially available music? Are new bands going to be struggling to survive due to poor record sales?
Personally, the words "mountain" and "molehill" spring to mind for a number of reasons. Firstly, the only people losing out in a big way are the record labels themselves, considering they take the majority of profits from CD sales. If they got off their collective arses and made CD’s more attractive purchases and better value for money, then that would encourage people to want to own "the real thing". Considering it only costs a couple of pence to make something that can cost up to £16.99 in some shops, why not drop the price and take a leaf out of DVD’s book by including more extras? Attractive packaging, booklets, biogs, photos etc. would help. Secondly, the bottom line is that the mp3 format still doesn’t sound as good as CD. Compression, and dodgy bit-rates can often mean cold, harsh sounding music with mysterious hiss and that weird phasing sound in the upper registers. Thirdly, what would you prefer: Having to wait for two or three minutes while your machine boots up, then play your mp3’s through tiny plastic speakers, your computer’s cooling fan whirring away in the background, with you sitting uncomfortably at your desk staring at your monitor with electromagnetic radiation slowly frying your eyeballs? You could buy one of those extraordinarily expensive cigarette packets that can only store about half an hour of music at a time and come complete with those fiddly, tinny earphones? How about lying on your bed, while a half-decent separates system fills the room with lush, ear caressing sound all at the push of a button? Hmmm, let me think about that one. I think many music lovers are a lot more discerning than the major labels make out.
Napster is a great utility for interacting with other music enthusiasts, discovering new artists, and finding out about different types of music. But as a threat to CD? No way, man.
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