The Distant Future, The Year 2000

The music industry today is comprised of the dumbest, most unimaginative people in the world. When you flunk out of business school, it’s probably the only job you can get. When faced with a problem they have not encountered before, good businessmen try to find a creative solution. The music industry businessman simply digs in his heels and plays dead, hoping that the crisis will blow over and everything will be fine in the end. Well, let me tell you something: I have not bought a CD in 2 years and I don’t plan on buying one any time soon.

While the RIAA people sit around in an office with fumes coming out of their ears, trying desperately to cling on to the past, other more intelligent people are actually thinking how the industry can move forward. Wired Magazine has an article about Rock Band, the new game from Harmonix. In it, Alex Rigopulos, the CEO of Harmonix, talks about the future, when we will all fly around on jet packs, eat food in the form of pills or do unbelievable things like legally download music:

Rock Band will come packed with about 40 songs, but over the next year MTV will make hundreds more available for purchase and download — hit singles, deeper cuts, and sometimes entire albums. “The problem with CDs is that the value proposition got sort of funky for our audiences,” says Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks. “They’re reluctant to pay $20 for a CD that has one song they like. Now, with Rock Band, they’ll be happy to pay a couple of bucks for a song they interact with repeatedly and get scored on their performance in.” And, of course, MTV has the clout and the connections to build a gargantuan library — something Harmonix never could have done on its own.

Rigopulos thinks the online service could help to introduce new artists, the way MTV did in its heyday. “Sitting down and watching music was a new thing — it changed the mass market’s notion of what music entertainment was,” he says. As we sit in his office, he describes how Rock Band could be the next stage of evolution for the music industry, as well as the game industry. “The instruments reprogram you. The urge you’re going to feel when the Killers release a new album is the urge to feel the songs as a player.” He leans forward intently and adds, “In five years, this is how people are going to consume the music they love.”

Read the full article.

Week 11

4 posts. Done.

Judging a book

There’s a lesson to be learned here, I’m sure.

Damn you, bunnies!

I’m terribly sorry for not being around. But it’s not entirely my fault. It’s the damn rabbits. What rabbits, you ask?

These rabbits.

You know, a couple of years ago, I had never heard of this book. Then it washed up on the shore of my favorite island, but still I didn’t pay much heed to it. It took three years and  severe withdrawal pains that made me crave all things even marginally Lost-related to get me to actually buy it. And you know what?

It’s awesome.

If you haven’t read it, you really should. It’s about a bunch of rabbits that embark on an epic journey for survival in a world which is against them in all ways imaginable. If that sounds like a kids story, it’s because it is. Richard Adams actually made it up to entertain his bored daughters during a long car trip, but the story turned out so well that he decided to write it down. That was 1972 and the book has never been out of print since then.

And anyway, if you have a problem with things that are meant to be “for kids”, you probably don’t play video games, read comic books, watch cartoons or eat lollipops. So what the hell are you doing here, anyway? Get out before I make you wear a silly hat.

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