Extra content isn’t going to make up for the fact that most of the music out there is regurgitated, over-produced fluff. It’s hard to find really good music these days.

But when I do find something I like, I support the artists fully. I either buy the physical CD directly from them, or I download from Amazon. WAY better value using Amazon’s MP3 service.

Why do people like buying digital downloads anyway when they can get the CD with a higher bitrate? Why would anyone be satisfied in getting a “stripped” version of a song where you’re locked into a bitrate and the quality obviously isn’t the equivalent of a 1440kbps CD version? I know everyone isn’t an audiophile, but still… it’s like buying some original, albeit copied, artwork but only receiving reduced JPEG of it!

Songs on iTunes (and AmazonMP3) come with album art already. You can get lyrics for any song on the internet if you really want so that adds no value to me. A digital book doesn’t really do it for me.

Another good idea would be to get some people with actual talent to make music to sell. There is barely anything new worth buying or listening too these days that is new.

I’m not in the music industry, so I’m not entirely sure how they should proceed… but one thing that I imagine would entice even dishonest people are thing like merch/concert ticket discounts.

If when you bought the new Incubus album, it came with a coupon for discount concert tickets, or something like that people might be inclined to buy. Computers have forever changed how media companies will make money, and they need to evolve as well.

I admit I miss the artwork and liner notes that some groups put together, but most of it anymore is crap. The “additional content” usually sucked before. What about putting music videos in a format that can be easily copied to an ipod?

The only group I remember ever doing something fun with the digital content was Gorillaz.

There are certain bands and certain artists that are actually creative and are actually doing musical art. They account for all of about 0.1 (maybe as high as 0.5) percent of the music available through iTunes. From those, I am quite likely to buy the full album anyway. But I’d pay a bit more on top for any extras.

Anyway, on topic, this might sway me towards a full album purchase but only if I was on the fence anyway and only if the full album pricing is reasonable (i.e. don’t charge extra for this extra content).

I have felt for some time that the music industry needed to find new creative ways to make money. This is a start… and it will work for a small percentage of people, but this is only a baby step. They need to continue evolving and finding new ways of making money.

Trying to control illegal downloads is a losing battle, so they need to continue working to find something that will make consumers motivated to spend their money. This doesn’t motivate me much, but it’s good to see they are at least thinking the right way.