[Ti] iTunes 4.6...

[Colin Buttimer]

> I think the switch to CD's from lp's had already started to put the
> nail in the coffin.  Let's see - the dark side of the moon lp
> included a poster, Zeppelin's albums had multiple insets/cutouts
> (physical graffiti), a spinning wheel of fun (III) and a neat paper
> bag (In through the out door).  None of this was available on CD.
> Not to mention the cutouts in Sgt. Pepper or the amazing artwork in
> Yes albums.  When's the last time you bought an lp?  The visual
> aspects of music died with the CD (sure you still get liner notes
> with the CD package, but a true fan is going to scour the internet to
> get as much info as they can on their favorite artists anyway, so
> nothing is lost there).
I'm a big fan of Led Zep's Hypgnosis-designed covers - I can't help but find
it odd that all that amazing graphic computer power is microns away from the
music on computers and yet it's not utilised in any way! If you're
interested in visuals, I'd recommend the three volumes of the Sampler Series
on radical music graphics (which include quite a few of Christopher's Fallt
designs). 

As to interesting design - it's definitely out there, it's just not in the
mainstream anymore, sadly. Check out Matthew Herbert's Goodbye Swingtime
(fine cutout silhouettes), Boards of Canada's Geogaddi booklet, Múm's Summer
Make Good and Finally We Are No One (limited edition sketchbook/diary
affairs), Pan Sonic's 4cd Kesto release, Jazzanova's In Between, Kim
Hiorthoy's designs for Rune Grammofon and Smalltown Supersound, some of
Jazzland's releases, Designer Republic's designs for Autechre - those are
just off the top of my head...
 
> The visual aspect of music for the next generation is G-Force.
Yikes!
 
> I for one like the album art in iTunes for making mix CD covers with
> lots of mini-covers (the low quality art is okay when it's small).
> BTW, as crazy as it sounds, walmart.com's music store seems to have
> the highest quality album covers available for cut/paste into iTunes.
> The worst thing about iTunes, IMHO, is that the intended sound
> quality of music will be lost on the listeners as they reduce
> bitrates to try to cram more music on computers and devices.
>From my perspective the worst thing about iTunes imo is that it commodifies
and reduces music by denuding it of all the wonderful metadata (visual
design, textual information, etc) which some of us love to peruse as we
listen to our music. If I were a developer I'd love to develop an mp3
application for all those people who still love their album covers...

Cheers, Colin.