On Demand
The End of Liner Notes
Back in the day, music lovers would buy a new CD, break open the packaging, and pour over the CD booklet before even pressing play. But with sales of downloads gaining on CDs, more artists are dropping the liner notes from their albums, relegating lyrics and shout-outs to mom and friends to their web sites instead. David Browne, author of a recent New York Times article on the subject, joins us to explain this lost art form.
Our blog: Noted liner-note writer John Schaefer on liner notes
Weigh in: Do you lament the decline of liner notes? Or are you happy to sacrifice them for the convenience of digital formats?
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I used to love liner notes, but as downloading has made it less and less expensive to buy music, I have drifted away from purchasing CDs. I really don't see why, with technology as univeraly supported as PDFs, liner notes aren't made more available for download. And no, Wikipedia doesn't count!
Artists and labels should be taking advantage of this unprecedented opportunity in distribution, and use it to make liner notes better than ever.
Come on, people! Get to work!
Some say that "if you put more than 10 tracks on a CD, you're giving them away", because iTunes prices most albums at $9.99, effectively making additional tracks cheaper; or "if your songs are longer than 3:40, radio stations won't play them".
But while these rules are logical & true, they should not inhibit an artist from sharing their music in a way that makes the most creative sense.
Having spent the last two weeks supervising and approving art and texts for the upcoming CD by my ensemble, I would estimate that our gleaming 8-page booklet accounts for at least 30% of the duplication costs -- but having the song texts, the entire team's names, the photographs and indeed setting a visual context for the music is, for me, an integral part of the experience. It's hard to imagine the album without the booklet, I would feel as if I've cheated the listener.
I've recently downloaded the violinist Lara St. John's new CD (of Hindson / Corigliano / Liszt) from iTunes, and it included the full booklet in PDF. Clearly, the technology for bundling the booklet with downloads already exists, and it's just a matter of time before the listeners begin to demand it again.
Since more listeners buy their music online, fewer copies of the physical CD should be manufactured and distributed, thereby reducing duplication and shipping costs, and making a well-designed booklet (hard copy or PDF) that much more of a worthwhile endeavor all around.
Best,
Ljova
I just heard the promo for the show on Lenny's program while in the car. Now, back in the office, I am back to wnyc2, and I will try to catch the mp3 later.
Terrill beat me to it. When we had LP's we had whatever the producers gave us in the way of graphics and text.
Then, we went to CD's, and everything was cramped.
Now, with the internet, we buy mp3's from Amazon and find the text and graphics on the internet, far beyond anything we could possibly digest.
My trio Gathering Time is preparing to release our first CD, and if we end up relegating the lyrics and liner notes to our website, it'll be strictly a financial decision. That eight-panel fold-out costs a whole lot more, and our budget is -- shall we say -- modest!
When Sony BMG began repackaging its famous Glenn Gould recordings it put out an "Original Jacket" collection. The box (which I own) includes a 200-page booklet with an essay by a noted Gould specialist and detailed liner notes for each individual track. It's a real collector's item and I can't imagine that it would translate to a PDF download.
And of course, Gould wrote the original notes to his 1956 Columbia recording, so you could really understand where his interpretations were coming from...
this is the whole reason i don't download music. if it wasn't for liner notes i would have never found half the music i listen to. i love to know who played what and where things were recorded.
I have started a website to help those people (most of us) that are looking for information about recordings.
www.albumlinernotes.com has only been up since October but we have over 450 Liner Notes for various albums (including the essays for box sets). It is nice that this information is clear, legible and accessible.
This seems inevitable so we decided that this information needs to still exist in some manner. Thanks!
Birder (7)-
I buy a lot of music in mp3 at Amazon. My sourcing is Public Radio, Classical from WNYC, wnyc2, and WPRB, Princeton, NJ; and Jazz, WPRB.
Just today I bought Gabor Szabo, music aired by Dan Buskirk at WPRB.
Terrance on Evening Music is such a fabulous resource, playing so many different things.
And John S. has cost me tons of money over thirty years.
I don't really care much about liner notes but buy CDs for a different reason. I don't trust downloaded music because if your computer crashes and you lose the music it is gone. If you have the CD you always have the music. As for the last caller he needs to check
Allmusic.com
re: Current caller's (Brian)"IMDB" wish: does allmusic.com come close?
OK, enough with the liner note conversation! We get the idea!
was listening to the show while looking up information on the nigeria special comps.
found a blog post by the guy that put them together titled, "5 sleeve notes that changed my life." (link below)
http://nigeriaspecial.info/blog/?p=4
you can hear some of the music here:
http://nigeriaspecial.info/
To the caller who wanted IMDB for music:
www.allmusic.com
TRY ALLMUSIC -- it has everyone and everything.
just a sidenote to a previous call: www.allmusic.com does have a crossrefrence 'credits' area that is a decent source that i use frequently...
A friend from brazil sends us music all the time and the most enjoyable part is the liner notes he makes for them. Whether we like the music or note, the obvious effort put into making the notes makes the music more enjoyable and the context is always helpful...
I think it is terrible,it is soulless music heard in a vacuum. No context means little meaning. I do not download music, only buy CD's and one can make tapes. I love the booklets and what they offer, and I think most music these days is awful anyway, so I guess, most of it really has no meaning at all. I think that it is all vacuous, and that liner notes are very important, for good music.
a band called Thee Hydrogen Terrorists (who Hold Steady may have played with at Brownies abck in the day as Lifter Puller) had an innovation, where they vocally listed the credits at the end of the album for every credit..
I have always loved liner notes and this love does contribute to my meager downloading habits.
But for me, it's more than just information. The _design_counts too. Graphic design. As for the liner notes of LPs vs. CDs, the latter are only cramped if they are simply scaled-down reproductions of the original LP version (if it exists). Otherwise, it's simply a different design challenge.
I called in, but I guess I wasn't in time.
As a younger music lover I've experienced music and music purchase in multiple different ways- on vinyl (yes, I still buy it brand new), CD, and digitally. I feel like liner notes used to be a sort of physical artifact integral in buying music; however, music itself is losing importance as a physical artifact.
There are two ways of approaching the issue: the first is to de-emphasize liner notes as part of a CD, just as a CD is de-emphasized in the music experience. Simplify, simplify. Expansiveness is growing unnecessary because physical music itself is growing unnecessary.
The second is to refresh the importance of the artifact. It would make the most sense to overhaul the concept completely. To me, the best way to accomplish this is to use something like e-ink; a small "sheet" with every possible bit of information regarding the album WITHOUT the inconvenience of paper goods could make buying physical music sexy again.
It is absolutely tragic, the loss of liner notes. It was just volumes of great info, culture, and often frivolity we loved. And it was the gestalt of art and creativity. This ties in to yesterday's show about bootlegs and leaks for the megafan. Then again the loss of anything tactile to touch and feel, smell, cherish, is half the problem. (apologies to my green friends and fellow Apple stockholders) No record stores, no totems or icons, no context of an album of music; just one free, easy, and therefore valueless audio commodity experience after another.
But I ask you this - might it be a trend toward obfuscation of the puppetmasters behind these cardboard talents? Do the fans of Britney or whoever even really want to know what little part these figureheads play. I was trying to see if my niece was correct in her assertion that the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus "WRITE ALL THEIR OWN SONGS!!!" and the CDs had no info at all. Very interesting...
i love the convenience of downloading music only for sampling purposes. which is why i don't buy mp3s. the feeling of sampling shearwater's 'rook' through online download (legally obtained via the media source i blog for) on my portable laptop speakers vs. buying the album this weekend and pouring through the liner notes and artwork while listening to the glorious quality in my car is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. i now own the shearwater record. before, even though i had heard it all, absorbed it, and wrote a review for it, i only owned about 1/5th of it.
So, it's now 3:45, the last comment was at 2:48.
It looks like this discussion is at an end.
But- if we had a real forum, with a reply notification utility, the discussion could easily go on for days.
I could thank Ted in Atlanta for sending us Terrance, I could ask Chris if mpls is Minneapolis of the Twin Cities, where from St Paul cometh Innova.mu and the American Composers Forum, American Mavericks from MPR.
Alas, some day, maybe we will get a real forum.
>>RSM
Why are people who prefer CDs "luddites"? Why aren't people who refute the value of physical packaging called philistines? Boo! Boo, says I!
I really like liner notes. They prepare me for at least a little of what to expect; they help me then to evaluate what I'm listening to according to the terms of the musical creators (rather than my own prejudices); and they ground me in a certain time and place. I will always prefer CDs over downloads.
In addition to liner notes (and lyrics), I would love to see printed on the back of all CDs and on artists' web pages--an introduction to the music. How many times have I curiously handled a shrink-wrapped CD in a store--and no clue about the contents is given? And if it's misclassified on the shelves, then even the genre becomes a mystification. Besides, no two interpretations of any music type are alike!
Sampling is a good idea--if the store is equipped and if you have the time. A little heads-up about content might trim the selection process.
When you buy a book, whether fiction or non-fiction, a summary of what to expect is writ large on the book jacket. Including endorsements.
Why not for records???
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