Stuck In A Pagoda With Motoko Aoyama

This came from Billboard via Reuters yesterday:

NEW YORK (Billboard) – Elvis Costello’s next solo studio album, curiously dubbed “Momofuku,” will arrive April 22, and plans are for the set to be released only on vinyl, with a digital download code included in the package.

No other details are available about the Lost Highway release, which follows 2004′s “The Delivery Man,” Costello’s debut on the label with his band the Imposters.

Apparently, E.C. is seeing the writing on the wall. CDs are increasingly becoming the way people load music into iPods or listen to music in their cars, while vinyl continues to be on the upswing as the favored in-home format. This would make Universal the second major label to experiment with the vinyl-plus-download option after Columbia/Sony-BMG, and the third to offer a vinyl-with-digital-bonus (be it download or CD) after Warner Music (who encloses CDs with recent vinyl releases). It’ll be very interesting to see how this goes.

And now, the series that the naysayers have dreaded, the elitists have feared, and the music lovers have waited patiently for…

I had promised to write a series on the viability of getting Morning Musume in America (yeah, know they have fans in England, Canada, Europe, South America, and wherever else on the planet broadband internet access is available, but even the Beatles weren’t The Motherfucking Mind-Blowing Genre-Destroying Badass Revolutionary Musical Force Known As The Beatles until they first stepped off that plane at JFK Airport 44 years ago…) for quite some time, but all good things take time, and with a series this important, I was not about to go off all half-cocked, especially with the Radicalquislings of the world breathing down one’s neck. That having been said, let me point out right now that even once I’ve set these ideas to (virtual) paper, I’m liable to think of things that should have gone into “past” columns or that might be even better points of discussion and attack than previously mentioned.

With that introduction and caveat both out of the way, let’s get down to business.

In order for Morning Musume to make their way into the greater American consciousness, we cannot forget the very first link in the chain between artist and music lover – the recorded product. (I could very easily say “CD and digital download” but with vinyl making such a resurgence over the past couple of years, especially in this country, I’ll avoid being format-specific and just refer to “albums” and “singles”.) I have not done a survey of any kind on whether fellow MoMusu/H!P fans have most of their music in digital (mp3) or in tactile (CD) form. (For the record, most of this writer’s collection is at least 95% CD – all of which was ripped to my hard drive for my iPod upon receipt – and 5% download, with most of those files being from both the Japanese and American iTunes stores.) However, I would like to gather that many of you buy the CDs, downloading only as a tideover until one has the actual CD in their hands. I’m also presuming that many of you would readily buy more of the CDs if they were available domestically.

However, not just any record label is going to be able to handle this music. A label that is just going to throw Morning Musume against the wall and hope that they’ll stick will not be a good label for the band. Neither will a label that will push the band as a “novelty”, or market them solely to the anime convention crowd.
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As I begin to type this entry out, I have my Numark TTUSB Turntable out and a 200-gram pressing by Classic Records of the enduring Miles Davis album Kind Of Blue – one of the greatest albums ever made in any genre – playing; specifically, side two in the middle of Julian “Cannonball” Adderley’s alto sax solo on “All Blues”. I seem to be playing this album in this particular format at least once a week – I have owned Kind Of Blue in a couple of its different CD issues (the early 80’s release with its unnecessary digital remix of the album’s tracks and a totally different cover photo, and the remastered edition released in 1997 that is the version readily available, the master of which the vinyl pressing I am presently playing is based on) and I must say, even through the Logitech iPod speakers that my turntable is presently plugged directly into, the record sounds absolutely incredible. Just mentioning this particular pressing of the album on my LiveJournal led my colleague Vee to remark, “Holy crap, CJ, I got chills just reading that sentence”’ – which makes me wonder how she would react if she had been in the room with me to hear the actual record.

Vinyl has been making a rather unique resurgence over the past few years, notable enough for Time magazine to recently write an article about the phenomenon. The format has never disappeared – punk rock, alternative/indie rock, hip-hop, and electronic dance music have all kept the format alive, but most chain music stores do not stock them (unless they’re as big as Virgin Megastore’s Times Square, New York location).

Ironically, one national chain that is carrying some vinyl is Hot Topic. Don’t laugh. It’s not a wide or even a large selection – the selection is limited to some punk, alternative and metal releases (not surprising given Hot Topic’s sales demographic), but if you wanted to grab Paramore’s Riot! or No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom on colored vinyl, or a picture disc of Fall Out Boy’s Infinity on High or Slayer’s South Of Heaven (not Reign In Blood, American Recordings?), you’d be set.
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The recent – and admittedly, controversial and questionable ruling – against a Minnesota woman accused by the RIAA of using Kazaa to file share songs (over $9,200 a song for 24 songs was the “judgment”) seems to have riled up a certain segment of the music-listening populace. That particular part of the populace believes that recorded music should NEVER be paid for.

Excuse me?

The typical refrain from these people. “Don’t pay for recorded music – download it for free instead. If you want to support an artist, go see their live shows and buy a T-shirt from them.”

Wonderful utopian fantasy, huh? Do these people get their food and utilities for free? How about the computer that they use to download music? Can any rational person reading this say TOTAL AND COMPLETE COPOUT?

“But, dude,” these people will say, “it doesn’t matter – the artists don’t get paid by the labels anyway.” or “The artists have enough money.”

Oh, now you want to talk money, huh? Well, here’s a real-life economy lesson:
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