BY DAN
KENNEDY
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Monday, September 15, 2003
More on the Man in Black.
Jimmy
Guterman's tribute to Johnny Cash
in today's Globe is one of the better ones that I saw over the
weekend. He writes:
Cash transcended limits
cultural and political, not just music. Cash wrote a novel based
on the Gospel of Paul and shared racy jokes with death-row
prisoners; Cash had both Bob Dylan's and Richard Nixon's home
phone numbers. His ability to get on the same level with different
groups seemed infinite.
CNN last night rebroadcast
Larry's
King's last interview with Cash,
from last November, to mark the release of his final album,
American IV: The Man Comes Around. Larry is his usual
disconnected self. After reading an intro about Cash's new album, he
engages his guest about his health problems, then asks:
KING: Can you sing?
CASH: Well, as well as I ever
could I guess.
Earth to Larry: how do you suppose
he made the album?
A better choice would be
Terry
Gross's interview on
Fresh Air, which was rebroadcast on Friday, the day that Cash
died. Not only is Gross a considerably more perceptive and
sympathetic interviewer than King, but the show was taped in 1997,
when Cash was in better health. I caught the last 15 minutes, and
look forward to hearing the whole thing.
Finally, you can watch the entire
video of Cash's "Hurt" by clicking here.
Legal limits. I love the
Apple
Music Store, but until this
weekend I had only bought a few individual songs here and there. On
Saturday, I bought Johnny Cash's American IV: The Man Comes
Around. It was simple and painless, but far from
perfect.
Mainly it comes down to a matter of
value for price. I paid $9.99, which isn't bad. But by the time I had
burned it to a CD and stuck it in a jewel case, I was up to $11.
Amazon.com today advertises American IV for $13.49. So what
did I give up?
- Art. The songs
downloaded as though I had purchased them individually, with none
of the packaging that I would have gotten if I'd bought the actual
CD. I've seen bootlegs on the Internet where you get a chance to
download art, cut it out, and stick it in the jewel case just as
though you'd bought it in a store. Yet all Apple gives you is a
low-res image of the cover that shows up in iTunes.
- Credits. At the
moment, the Apple Music Store is a Mac-only phenomenon, and the
only way you can access your music (before transferring it to a CD
or an iPod) is through iTunes. Yet Apple doesn't even take
advantage of iTunes' database capabilities by filling in
songwriting and production credits. Maybe 12-year-olds don't care,
but 47-year-olds do.
- Sound quality.
Okay, my ears can't tell the difference, but the AAC format that
Apple uses, though supposedly better than MP3, is still
compressed, and thus doesn't carry as much musical information as
a regular CD.
Innovative though the Apple Music
Store is, when it comes to buying a full album, you're paying almost
as much as you would in a store -- and giving up quite a
bit.
posted at 8:18 AM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
