It Just Doesn’t Compute Recording Industry Makes Another Rash Decision With Jump In Enhanced Cds
When will the recording industry learn?
Less than two years after the last format debacle - in which Sony’s Mini-Disc battled Philips’ Digital Compact Cassette to be the consumer-level digital recording technology, and both lost - the major labels have jumped headfirst into the marketplace with a still-imperfect item called the “enhanced CD.”
It’s a disc that can be heard on any CD player, but when dropped into a CD-ROM drive offers a fountain of multimedia information - cool graphics, games, full-motion video, lyrics, you name it. The thinking is logical enough: There are millions of computers out there with CD-ROM drives and they all need software. Why not something for music lovers?
“It adds another dimension of excitement to the (music) in the form of video or text or artwork,” Fred Ehrlich, head of Sony Music’s new-technology division, says enthusiastically. “It’s a new way for artists to be creative.”
Indeed, the selection of E-CDs also known as CD-Plus and a number of generic names - is growing rapidly. There were 20 titles in June; now there are more than 100, from artists including Mariah Carey, Bob Dylan, Todd Rundgren (known in the digi-sphere as TR-i) and Soundgarden. Sony has a team of 10 software designers, researchers and artists working exclusively on enhanced CDs and is encouraging its acts to get on board. Billboard magazine recently published a special section on the format, and according to all involved, the discs, which sell for about $20, are expected to become tremendously popular.
But here’s the problem: Billboard estimates that nearly half of the CD-ROM drives now in use cannot read enhanced CDs. It helps to have a newish CD-ROM drive. Using Windows 95 makes it easier, too. However, a drive more than 2 years old doesn’t have a prayer, and even some manufactured more recently are unable to play the discs. There are warnings to this effect in the tiny print on the back of the packaging: “May not play on all CD-ROM drives” reads one. “Will not work with NEC CD-ROM drives,” cautions another.
Further complicating matters is that the industry has yet to arrive at a single standard that governs the millions of software commands. Some recording labels have aligned with Corel and include a set of Corel-designed software-drivers with each enhanced disc. Others utilize the existing drivers in Windows and Macintosh systems.
It’s a recipe for frustration: After careful formatting, half of the 10 enhanced CD titles we took for a test drive did not run on a computer that fully met the discs’ system requirements.
The industry is aware of these problems - hence the fine-print disclaimers - but rather than address them before the E-CDs catch on, they’re content to wait. Never mind that some fans are buying stuff their computers won’t be able to use.
“A key concern in terms of the launching of this product is to make certain we minimize technical disappointments with the consumer,” Joe Keiner, EMI Records Group’s senior VP of operations, told Billboard. “We have to be realistic and recognize that a large portion of the installed hardware base won’t be able to play the discs.”
Sounds like a problem worth addressing before too many more of these things are sold. And returned.
Assuming you can get the disc loaded onto your computer, you then encounter another, potentially larger, problem with E-CDs: content. Or the lack thereof.
Though many are designed as 3-D “environments,” with different options lurking behind every icon, most of the stuff is eye candy.
On Moby’s “Disc” (Elektra), the viewer watches the letters M-O-B-Y bounce randomly about the screen. Click on one and the adventure begins. Inside the various domains are postage-stamp-size insets that offer music videos, snippets of interviews with Moby, and lots of floating nonsense. The songs are fine, and the techno track that accompanies the menu is enchanting, but there’s hardly enough to warrant a return visit.
Moby’s effort is, alas, one of the hipper ones. Most of the enhanced CDs are designed to give fans a personal glimpse of their favorite artists, but the interviews are rarely penetrating. On her Christmas-themed disc, for example, Mariah Carey is asked about pets. Sarah McLachlan’s “The Freedom Sessions” (Arista) contains scenes the artist shot on her recent trip to Thailand. The Cranberries’ “Doors and Windows” (Island) contains footage of the Irish band’s performance at Woodstock ‘94.
Some titles do offer useful information. Dylan’s “Greatest Hits Vol. 3” (Columbia), released last month, contains a detailed timeline of the bard’s career, as well as lyrics, album credits and two full-length videos. Soundgarden’s “Alive in the Superunknown” (A&M) contains 20 minutes of music written specifically for the E-CD, as well as four audio tracks, live-performance video, animation and odd visuals - stuff that’s primarily of interest to diehard fans.
In the end, the E-CD experience is not yet fully satisfying. Though artists think they’re giving fans more, the effect is repetitive. Even a fully digital artist such as TR-i, whose new “The Individualist” (Digital Entertainment) is a complete album with CD-ROM graphics for each track, is prone to novelty. One track, “Cast the First Stone,” features a five-level game in which the listener can battle Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh.
If that seems a far cry from music, you’re getting the idea. Consider the current crop of E-CDs just a beginning.
As Bob Mould, the leader of Sugar, said after his first encounter with enhanced CD: “Making a record is a sacred thing, and musicians shouldn’t have to become software-providers. But every artist will eventually find out what they should do with this technology.”