Apple and record labels to release competing enhanced album formats

This promises to be something that the average consumer will never know anything about, like DVD Audio vs SACD.

I don't understand the bit about it only being available in smaller record stores. Are these data files burned onto discs?

Anyone remember "enhanced CDs"?

Exactly...
People just want the music they want. Only nerds want the extras.

As a music professor and lover of serious art (i.e. Classical) music, I must say that liner notes are oftentimes essential to the listening process. I have foregone downloads for CDs many times because of this, and I, for one, look forward to the inclusion of these notes.

Kelmon, it's not about the artist having a album with all decent tracks. It's about profit margin. You (as a consumer) generally only find out about new music via advertising (radio, in tv shows, etc). And that costs lots of money. So the labels focus their advertising money on what they think is the best song on the album, and in the old days you'd have to buy the 9 other songs to get the one you wanted, no matter what. Now, particularly since iTunes won't force you to buy the other 9, they have to essentially trick you into buying them. If 'giving' you liner notes, or a couple of pretty jpg's will do it, which cost them nothing, it's great for them.

Because while selling the 'hit' song as a single makes them a small profit (because they had to spend a bunch on advertising it), selling the other songs, which weren't advertised at all, makes them more than double the profit for each song. That's the 'coke and whore' money the music label executives need to keep the lifestyles they are accustomed to.

BLAH that's one thing I could care less about when I buy music. I've never been interested in liner notes, lyrics, blah blah. I just want to listen to the music. When I was buying CDs, I put them in a big CD book and tossed the cases. Tapes? got a big box of tapes, never kept the cases and the only reason I still have my record covers is because they're protecting the records!

Also wouldn't it be nice to pop in a DVD, press play and have the movie just start??? what a novel concept that would be!

Oh - and a caveat for my opinions - I do feel that Apple and the Labels will screw this up, and it'll never be as good as it could be. While there will be a no doubt a helpful "long-tail" catalog included in the liner notes, there will also be tickets and merch jammed down our throats b/c that's where the $$ is now.

What would be best is an open-source wiki-plus-some-nice-interaction website where fans contribute the notes, free of too many ads and sales pitches. Anyone interested? : )

And don't forget extra advertising imbedded within it!

and you can bet that they will overload it with all kinds of extra DRM to prevent lots of things. Maybe they will even have a 'call home' feature to the server so that they can pitch you similar albums or erase the music if the music store shuts down. Just what we need!

The "full album" thing is a bit more complex. The popular new music market is one thing - the labels sell a bunch of Britney Spears singles and make a killing. If they can sell a few full albums too b/c of notes, all the better. The bigger question however is back catalog. If the label can sell the full Journey album that "Don't Stop Believin'" is on, vs. just the single, that's a big win.

So, I'd expect these liner note bundles to be content appropriate - if you get a Journey album, expect old photos, lyrics, maybe band stories, plus tour schedules, ticket offers, etc.

So, let me get this straight - the record companies want to encourage full album purchases? Have they considered simply releasing albums that are full of good tracks?

Here's the thing. Speaking personally, if an album contains lots of good tracks such that it is cheaper, or damned close to it, for me to simply buy the complete album than it is to download the individual tracks that I want then I am happy to buy the whole thing. You can throw as much extras in as you like but if I don't like the music then I'm not going to pay for any more than I want to listen to. The last thing I need is more unnecessary fluff...