Apple’s Project Cocktail vs. CMX: Either way indie artists lose

What was the last album that you purchased that you listened to from beginning to end over and over again? When I was a teenager, there were many albums like Pink Floyd’s The Wall that you just couldn’t pick and choose individual tracks to play. We put the LP on the turntable, donned our headphones, and listened to both sides. It was an experience.

An article posted at Wired magazine’s Epicenter blog details the upcoming “battle” between Apple and major recording labels over the development of new digital music formats. Both Apple’s Project Cocktail and CMX, which is being developed by Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI, are supposed to add cover art, liner notes, and interactive features to digital albums.

Record Labels Diverge Over Next-Generation Full-Album Music Format

By Eliot Van Buskirk  August 11, 2009  |  6:18 pm  |  Categories: Media

Apple and the major labels are squaring off  for a major battle this fall with competing formats for delivering the latest innovation in digitial music. Full albums will come with a cornucopia of digital extras — at least that’s the way much of the tech press is setting the scene for a clash between Apple’s Project Cocktail and the major labels’ CMX format.

Both wrap songs, videos, images, lyrics, ringtones and other digital doodads into a comprehensive package that the industry hopes will bring back the long lost, profitable days of full album sales, which gave way to listeners buying single songs.

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The common goal is supposed to be the resurrection of the album, which has long been the staple of the recording industry. With online customers choosing to download individual tracks rather than entire albums, it is believed that special features that come only with an album will help boost sales.

One thing that most of the news articles about these new formats seem to overlook is how they will impact recording artists. The digital music format was not developed by the record industry. The MP3 was something that was forced upon them. In addition, the technology that is used to produce an MP3 is not proprietary to the recording industry.

This means that independent recording artists and small record labels can easily produce their own product and distribute it for sale through online stores. This will not be the case with Apple’s Cocktail and CMX. These formats will be owned by the record industry and artists who wish to use them to promote their albums will undoubtedly have to make deals with the major labels.

If these formats end up being something that consumers like (and that’s probably not likely), it will be a step back for independent recording artists and small labels. They will almost certainly be locked out of the game by the big boys.

As I’ve written before, the only thing that will bring back the album is for record labels to produce albums that people want to buy — those with 8 to 12 good tracks and very little filler. People don’t really buy albums for the cover art and liner notes.

In the early days of the LP, albums were just that — collections of singles that the artist had previously released. Then, recording artists began to utilize the expanded recording time to create longer works. The albums were often recorded to be listened to all at once, like an opera or similar composition.

A return to creating long-playing performances rather than a collection of individual tracks is the best way to get consumers interested in purchasing albums. That interest is something that “digital doodads” such as ringtones and computer wallpapers won’t accomplish.