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The CD is dead. Long live the CD

It’s old news that the CD, as a retailing and listening medium, is rapidly dying. Wanna see for yourself? Just go to a store that sells them and observe the pathetically shrinking floor space devoted to them. iTunes and downloads now dominate the ways that people receive and listen to music. 

We love that.

However, we wanted to share a couple of thoughts with you; things that will hopefully inform the next leg of our artistic journey, especially as we think about our next release.

First, there’s the aspect of musical quality. Simply put, we want to put the best product we can out. Every artist does. In fact, we thought about putting a blurb in the American Sun liner notes that effectively said, “This is NOT intended for iPod headphones.” Straight up, compressing things for computers degrades audio quality. We weren’t believers until we really listened to some of our favorite records and compared. As Buddy Miller put it, when you listen to a great CD (or vinyl), it can “make your heart hurt”; a similarly great mp3 often just lacks that magical mid-range that would make Neil Young say, “yup!”. T-Bone Burnett the producer behind Robert Plant and Allison Krauss’ Raising Sand, similarly grouses against the sound quality of iPod music (full disclosure: we all LOVE the convenience of our iPods, and may someday even release the rules of the infamous Maida Vale “iPod Challenge” game). He and some colleagues are brainstorming some new electronic delivery formats that will enhance the quality of music, though there’s nothing in production yet. 

Second, we believe that the CD still may have value as an artifact. A piece of visual art, cultural “swag.” Granted it is not the “mainstream market” life. It becomes “niched life”, available to those of us who still like to read liner notes (when they are interesting), who still want to know what was played on what tracks, who still want to engage with the visual artistic direction of the group. 

Maida Vale intends to be a band that pushes towards the fringes of the current music business culture. We will deliver music in a way that “rides the wave” of culture. Simultaneously, we have a hunch that there are those of you out there who want to listen to music, to have your heart hurt. We also think that there are some of you out there who want to know how Maida Vale is conceptualized in terms of a design aesthetic, in terms of visual art. That there are some of you who want to know how Justin or Josh got “that sound.”

We believe in tone. We believe in design. We believe in the value of aesthetics. We think some of you do too, and hopefully over the next six months or so, we’ll journey through this together: sharing music, visuals, and ideas on art.

The CD as music retail is dead. Long live the CD as art. 

Justin's been listening to a lot of...

Buddy Guy - “Heavy Love”

B.B. King - “One Find Favor”

Spoon - “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga”

Pandora Radio - Cake, Von Bondies, Justin Timberlake, Simon & Garfunkel

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V89 Hootenanny Live Performance