Us v. Them, Over and Over Again

So eMusic has just announced a partnership with Sony to host 200,000 albums from Sony's back catalogue (albums released in the last two years are not included). Sounds good, right? Well, there's a catch. As a result, subscribers have been hit with a huge price increase. My effective plan has increased the price per track by 33%, while some customers are seeing increases as high as 75%. Apparently everyone at eMusic thinks this is a great idea, despite the fact that everyone who already subscribes to eMusic thinks it's terrible. I posted a response to CEO Danny Stein's blog post here. If you don't feel like clicking through, here's what I had to say:

I admit I’m not adding anything new to the conversation, but I think it’s important that you know just how many of your current customers are disappointed with this decision. I’ve been a huge fan of your service and it’s one of the first places I go to find new music. Usually, I’ll hear a great track or two from a new band or album on one of my favorite music blogs and head right over to eMusic to see if I can get the whole album. With the emphasis on music discovery, I’ve usually found a couple more albums to fill out my monthly quota in just a few hours. It’s a great way for me to hear new music in an affordable way and to contribute to new artists.

It’s not very often that I download classic albums from this service. I don’t need this service to help me find Nebraska or Highway 61 Revisited, and I’m not happy paying a premium price so that other users have that capability.

I’ve read before that artists using your service see a profit of about 30 cents per track. I don’t have a source to cite and it doesn’t really matter to me if that number is 100% accurate. However, it makes me wonder what kind of deal Sony is getting if you’ve now pushed the basic plan cost to consumers to 50 cents per track. It was my original belief that the eMusic was looking to expand their catalogue on their own terms by having the majors agree to the established pricing structure. Keep in mind that Sony isn’t giving license to the bulk of their popular holdings, only to the long tail.

In my opinion, if Sony thinks it’s special enough that it can demand a higher price for a collection whose average quality isn’t anything special, then they continue to try to market and sell their music through traditional channels. If they concede that eMusic offers a collection of highly enthusiastic music fans who are willing to spend a lot more money on affordable music, then I’d be happy to let them play our game on our terms. It could be a lot of fun. As it stands though, I’m much happier playing without the cool kids that demand all the attention.

By the way, kudos on establishing album pricing. I was hoping for 10-track policy rather than 12, but it’s a much awaited improvement.

Dance With Me?

I suffer from a devastating ailment in that I love to dance but am both afraid to do it and quite bad at it, even for a white boy. For this reason, I tend to try to stick to more traditional partners dancing rather than trying to bust a move. After going quite a while without dancing with anyone particularly memorable, I've had three pretty good experiences in the last month or so.

About a month ago, I danced with my girlfriend (Katie P.) for the first time. My roommates weren't home and I put on a cover of one of my favorite Christmas songs ("Baby, It's Cold Outside") by one of my favorite bands (Built for the Sea). I took her by the hand and we danced around the living room. Those are the moments you just can't help being proud of for orchestrating perfectly.

Then, a couple of weeks later, I went with Tony (Toners) and Ninny (Otter) to a Christmas party thrown by Tony's family's friends. This was a pretty typical grown-up affair, done Southside-style (i.e., lots of booze). By the end of the night I had danced with Tony's mom to "Hey Ya" and with Ninny to "That's Amore" (and something similar that I can't currently recall), which was a little bit anachronistic, to say the least. Dancing with Ninny was probably the most fun I've had dancing with anyone since high school. It probably helped that we were both drunk, but it was also completely pressureless because we're close platonic friends. With other girls, I'm always worried about what boundaries are where and whether or not I'm crossing them. Dancing (at least when you're not doing it with your mother) tends to be a necessarily intimate affair and things like how close you hold each other, where your hands are, where your faces are, how you're singing, etc. are all elements of body language that are to interpret perfectly.

That last point is the cause of most of my inhibition toward dancing. First off, it's nearly impossible to ask a girl to dance without them thinking you're hitting on them. If they want that, then you're in the clear; but more often than not, they go in to a defensive mode. This is especially true if they're with their girlfriends. (This is, of course, why men need wingmen to be effective.) This was the overanalysis that paralyzed me on New Year's Eve, when I went out to The Lodge in Lisle with Joe, Katie C., and her friend Becky. I agreed to go out with the three of them to keep Becky from being a third wheel and because my alternate plans were less than spectacular. After getting our drink on for a little while, I was really itching to get out on the floor. The exact sequence of events remains hazy, but I eventually ditched the group to go get lei'd by the lead singer of Covergürl (pictured; I'm in the tie. Apologies for violating Article XV). While up by the stage, I danced and sang the night away and had a great time, but it could have been even better if I had danced with people I knew.

When we got back to Katie C.'s house, Joe was tending to Katie because she had one too many ("It was just the last drink!"). Meanwhile, I was hanging out with Becky. I put on some music on the computer and we talked about random stuff for a while. Then I decided to put on Dino's "Sway" and took her hand and we danced around the room for half a song. I have absolutely no idea if she was enjoying it or if she just thought I was a weirdo. We got cut short when Katie's mom yelled down the stairs to wish everyone a happy new year and Becky and I were the only ones to respond. We turned off the music and Becky explained that Katie wasn't feeling too well. After that, we all settled on to the couch for Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and the dancing days were over.

So ladies, what do you think about platonic dancing?

Michael McDermott - Dance With Me (Coming Soon!)

Dean Martin - Sway (Coming Soon!)

The Comeback Kid

It's been a while. If anyone ever reads this that doesn't know me, they may wonder what happened in the last half-year of my life. I won't bother summarizing either the significant or the mundane. There were ups and downs. I simply lived.

I'm not quite sure what's drawing me back to this right now. The new year is a convenient excuse, but I don't think it has much to do with that. Particularly, I'm inspired by Sterling Hayden's Wanderer, which I recently began to read. I'm impressed with his ability to recall (or at least re-imagine) the internal dialogue that defines and reflects our true self. Sometimes, you just know that the thoughts you are having at the moment are significant and formative and most of these thoughts remain unspoken. Tonight, I feel like my thoughts are worth recording for at least my own sake. If ever these words are of any benefit or entertainment to a reader, that's all the better.

In Chapter 14 of Wanderer, Hayden writes, "There was something mysterious about certain things...What bothered you most is that you had no way of knowing if these things bothered your friends too." This is something I think about a lot. I'm troubled by the apparent taboo we have at sharing these sorts of personal feelings. I think I probably succumb to the taboo a bit more thoroughly than others, but I believe it's present in everyone's lives. I find it quite difficult to overcome and my maladroitness in this area has almost certainly fucked up my relationships with other people. As I reflected on this, I approached a somewhat disjointed idea: I miss Meghan. (For those following along chronologically, that's Aitch/H. I'm going with real first names from now on, unless someone I write about actually reads this and objects. In this case in particular, though, I'll probably stick with "H" from here on out.)

There are few people that I consider close friends, fewer that I've actually opened up to, and even fewer that seem to actually "get" me. H is certainly a member of that small subset. Unfortunately, we haven't spoken in quite a long time. Since she's off in Denver now, there are never any casual meetings. In addition, I kind of suck at having real conversations on the phone (I think that's mostly a Y-chromosome thing). Even if I learned to do that, I'm not sure how healthy it is to regularly be calling someone I used to still have a crush on. I don't know what it is I'm hoping for. The reality is that it's not very likely that we'll ever again live within 100 miles of each other and a sustained close friendship just isn't likely to flourish in those conditions. I find myself fantasizing about how things could have been different and then reflecting on regretful decisions. I wish that instead of drinking myself fat and lazy, I had instead gone to the gym or the library a few times. It's hard to say where the line of balance was, but it's pretty clear that I was well over it. The time I spent with H is probably the only consistently unblemished aspect of my college career. We worked together, bitched about work together, flirted with each other, got drunk and silly and philosophical together, got sober and silly and philosophical together, and were just happy when together. I don't know if there's a person that I would feel more comfortable talking to about anything at all. For whatever reason, just sharing my thoughts with her made me feel good.

I'm not quite done with all I've got to say, so I'll be back. As for now though, I have to be up in just over four hours for work, so I guess it's a good time to stop.

Also, I'm changing both the title and URL for this blog. I'm not sure to what yet, but I'm definitely changing it.