Download Your Songs, Downgrade Your Music

It's a shame to look around and watch so many record/tape/CD stores going out of business. My old stomping grounds, Crow's Nest, in Crest Hill, Illinois, went out a couple of years ago. Tower Records is gone. And now, at least one Virgin Megastore is closing. Many blame downloading (both legal and illegal) for the downfall of CDs. Sadly, one must admit that that, combined with a general universal indolence, indeed must be the cause. If only consumers would do some research, think a little, and not be so lazy, we'd still have more of these great stores around. Let's use iTunes, pretty much the standard in music downloading, as an example, and consider the following...

The laziness factor
Yup, laziness. What's easier? Going to a store or library, looking for what you want, finding it, and taking it to the checkout counter; or doing a quick search on iTunes, finding the (non-Beatles) selection you want, and downloading it to your hard drive within seconds?

The cost factor: the value for your money
And how much did that song cost you? Probably ninety-nine cents; not quite a buck. This is fine if it's just a random song you want, say, "Cement Mixer" by The Orlons. But what if you want an entire album's worth of material? (Let's face it, not many people want an entire Orlons album; and those who do would probably buy a collectible reissue CD.) A typical album contains twelve songs, and twelve songs at 99 cents a pop is $11.88, pretty close to what it costs to buy a whole CD. Also, consider that many CDs contain more than twelve songs.

What you don't get from downloading
Keeping in mind that the $11.88 you pay for downloading a dozen songs is just about what a CD costs, let's look at what you get via downloading as opposed to getting the CD. When you download from iTunes, you get basically an MP3 (or another compressed format) that contains data telling you who the artist is, the song, and perhaps other info such as the year of the recording or release, what album it's from, a thumbnail-sized repro of the album's cover art (sometimes both front and back), the composer, stuff like that. When you get a CD, here's what you typically get:

• A physical, tangible medium that you can take with you without needing a computer to transfer it


• A protective case for easy storage


• Liner of some kind, including artwork that's much bigger than what you see on an iPod, often detailed notes about the session crew and artists, sometimes printed lyrics, very often exhaustive stories behind the recording, and God knows what else.


• Many modern releases come with a mini-documentary on DVD, usually at no extra charge. Cases in point: George Harrison's Brainwashed, Ringo Starr's Choose Love, and "Weird Al" Yankovic's Straight Outta Linwood.
  

Sound quality
When you download your music from iTunes and most other providers, you're getting a compressed file that's maybe a few megabytes. Unfortunately, the compression used is what's called a "lossy" compression, meaning that some sound quality is sacrificed in order to make the file small enough to be portable.

MP3 format is easily the most popular sound file format, and of course is a lossy compression scheme. The compression with MP3 files is measured in Kbps, or kilobits per second. Just to give you an idea of what that means in terms of the file itself, let's use 128kbps. If an MP3 is compressed at 128kbps, it means the sound quality is optimized so that if you're playing the MP3 live over the Internet, it's going to be the best sound quality you can get over a 128kbps connection. (And the smaller the kbps, the worse the MP3 sounds.) Of course, MP3s are seldom played online -- they're usually downloaded and played locally, so the connection speed is kind of moot. But the higher the kbps rate, the better the sound. What's alarming is that the default compression rate in most MP3 conversion utilities is 128kbps -- and I've seen more than one MP3 program list 128 as "CD quality." Uhhh....no! Seriously, most people with a good ear can detect whether the music they're listening to comes from an MP3 of 128kbps or lesser quality. When I convert to MP3, I have a strict 192kbps-or-higher rule, although I do use 128, or sometimes as low as 116, for spoken-word recordings. (I can detect up to 192kbps. Heck, I know a guy who can tell up to 224 kbps!)

But my point is that by downloading music, chances are you're getting a song that has significantly reduced sound quality; a CD would be a huge improvement. "But I need it in MP3 format so I can listen to it on my iPod," I hear you cry. Ahhhh, not so! iPods can play back WAV files, which although huge, are lossless. And alternate iPod operating systems such as RockBox and iPodOnLinux open the door up for even more compatibility with alternate sound formats.

The cost factor: the industry rips you off
A class-action lawsuit some years ago did indeed prove that the music industry has been price-gouging CD consumers for years; as I can tell you from personal experience, a settlement was reached in this lawsuit. Why am I mentioning this now instead of around the same part of the post that mentions another aspect of cost? Remember, a judge determined that CDs are overpriced. Yup, CDs that are physical media and come with liners and cases. So the price of a CD includes artist royalties, copywriters, graphic artists, photographers, the cost of the plastic casing, the cost of the medium itself, the cost of the inks and dyes used to print the artwork and the CD labeling, and of course, a little bit for the store.

Now, if a judge has determined that the price of CDs -- a cost that covers a wide variety of costs -- is too high, then where do download providers get off by charging almost a buck a song when there's absolutely no physical overhead whatsoever? The price goes to royalties (artist and record company, of course), graphic artists (assuming a digital image of the album cover is used), and storage space on the server (and as any computer geek will tell you, hard drive and network storage is dirt cheap anyway). Oh...and let's not forget that you're paying nearly a buck for a piece of music that doesn't have the sound quality that its equivalent CD has.

A final thought
I'm not one for long conclusions, so...get off your lazy ass, go out and get the CD (or stay lazy, but be patient and order the CD online), get more for your money, good sound quality, artwork, something you can play without a computer or MP3 player, and if you need something to play on your iPod, convert it yourself! Don't support the true rip-off artists!