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| Rather different from the usual album review! (on Biophilia) |
IN BRIEF:
With major artists Bjork, Jay-Z, Lady Gaga and Snoop Lion amongst those releasing iPad apps, does this mark the end of the album - or, at the time of writing at least, are these apps simply another promo tool seeking to flog merchandise ($100 pseudo spliff anyone? comparable to freemium games?) as well as tracks?
Ideas of this nature are far from new - I remember picking up several CD-Rom albums ('multimedia-a 2007 article posed the question: '“Interactive” Album Art: The CD-ROMs Of The Digital-Music Age?'
enhanced') back in the 90s ... and pretty much never bothering with the added content. Indeed,
WMG tried adding interactive booklets to about 75 albums sold on iTunes this spring, providing extra photos, lyrics and links to multimedia content much like extras on a DVD. But the booklets require Flash technology, which Apple later disabled in Quicktime because of a security flaw for which it has yet to release a patch.So, are we moving beyond the concept of a traditional album, with its dozen or so tracks sequenced and packaged with cover art? Actually, hasn't that already become passe with most iTunes (etc) users picking up specific tracks not albums, and Spotify users creating track-based not album-based playlists?
