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This is huge news.

Apple will soon allow record companies more flexible pricing of songs on their iTunes music store. Songs may be priced at 69 cents, 99 cents, or $1.29. In exchange for that, however, iTunes will make every available song completely DRM-free.

This essentially heralds the death of digital music purchases with DRM. While no doubt Amazon has been a big player in that (and in turn, they have received a lot of my business), this definitively puts the nail in the coffin. Since iTunes is the leader in digital music sales, all other stores will have no choice but to follow suit to remain even remotely competitive. This is great news for music lovers/tech geeks everywhere.

There are other possible ramifications for this move. I imagine more music players will start supporting AAC files, the format that iTunes uses, now that the songs will no longer require specially configured players (iPods) to play them. Also, with DRM gone, Apple has almost no good reason to keep their firmware locked down like they have with the past couple generations of iPods, so maybe future models will be more RockBox-friendly.

Tags: digitalmusic, itunes

Even though it is Tuesday, which is the usual day for new music releases, the new Rush DVD actually came out in stores yesterday. The latest release is a full concert recording of Rush on the first leg of their Snaked & Arrows tour. The “soundtrack” was released as a live album earlier this year, but the DVD documents the whole spectacle that is a Rush concert, and includes some extra footage that was left out of the R30 tour DVD and the songs they added on the second leg of the tour.

I saw them on this tour no less than three times. The first time was during the first leg of the tour, and I got to see the show from the front row. It was easily the most thrilling concert experience I ever had. Almost every track they played was a surprise to me, and I got to rock out with other Rush fanatics. I got to see them two more times on the second leg, and while I wasn’t so close either time, I got to share the experience with various friends.

Having already done the “greatest hits and classics” tour for their 30th anniversary tour, on this one they pulled out several tracks that they had not played in a long time (and in the case of one song, never played). They also played nine tracks off the stellar new album, which speaks volumes about the quality of their current output.

The concert is out on Blu-Ray as well as plain ol’ DVD, thereby making it the first thing to come out to truly tempt me into buying a Blu-Ray player.

You can find YouTube videos of some of the tracks from this fan blog posting.

Tags: rush

A couple days ago, I finally got the last of the Genesis box sets. This one covers the albums released between 1970-1975, which was the time period that is considered the “classic” Genesis period which saw them at their most experimental as pioneers of progressive rock and featured Peter Gabriel on lead vocals.

The albums featured are Trespass (1970), Nursery Cryme (1971), Foxtrot (1972), Selling England By The Pound (1973), and their hallmark double-concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974). A bonus disc is included in the box set with a couple of B-sides and rarities, including never heard before early recordings of a soundtrack the band was working on for a documentary that never saw the light of day.

Each album in the boxset comes with a remixed and remastered stereo mix on CD and a DVD with the new surround sound mixes. The European version (like what I bought) have a SACD hybrid disc that also contains the surround sound mixes. Unfortunately, the rumor is that when the individual albums get released (tentatively for January ’09), they will only be the CDs and will not include the DVDs. I don’t know why they are doing this. It’s totally inconsistent with the other released sets, but supposedly it has to do with the sales of the individual albums in the past. Supposedly the box sets have generally been selling much better as it mostly have been the fans buying them. So if you’re interested in the surround mixes, buying the box set is the only way to go.

I ordered my set from then-Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett’s website, so I had to wait a little over a week from the US release date to get my set. I finally got it now, and of course it has been worth the wait. The surround mixes suit many of these songs very well, as a lot of these early songs were very atmospheric and complex. Also, by pre-ordering from Hackett’s website, I got the man himself to put his John Hancock on it.

All together now!

Tags: genesis

The long awaited new double-album by one of my favorite bands, Marillion, is out now and currently only available to order from their website. The album is called Happiness Is The Road, and the buzz is that it is as good, if not better, than their 2004 masterpiece Marbles. The band had released the album much earlier on P2P networks in a reduced-quality format about a month ago as a pre-emptive strike on album leakage and as a promotional tool, so you could try to look for it to preview the whole album. In spite of that, I actually have not heard the album yet and I am still expecting my pre-ordered campaign deluxe edition to come in the mail.

The album’s two parts will be available as single volumes as well, so you can purchase only one disc if you so desire. If you’re all about instant gratification, low price and no shipping costs, they also have the album available as high quality MP3s (~$10 per “disc”).

Update: The album is out in the US now as well. I saw a few copies at Fry’s the other day, and you can buy the CDs or download MP3s from good ol’ American online retailers like Amazon.com.

Volume 1: Essence – CD, MP3s
Volume 2: The Hard Shoulder – CD, MP3s

Tags: marillion

It’s time for a history lesson in music…

Tags: genesis