Digital Download, 20 Years Ago
Thursday, July 10, 2014 at 12:01AM This is super cool. I came across a website yesterday called Noisey, Music By Vice. On June 27, Devin Schiff wrote a post about the first digital download. Here's an excerpt (the bold parts are my emphasis):
"Twenty years ago, on June 27, 1994, Geffen Records made history when it released the first major label song for exclusive digital download. The song was Aerosmith’s 'Head First,' an unused cut from the Get a Grip sessions. Ten thousand CompuServe subscribers downloaded it in eight days. It is three minutes and 14 seconds long. It took 60 to 90 minutes to download. “Head First” was a trial, a marketing ploy, a flash of the future, an iceberg for a titanic industry, and 4.3 megabytes of riffs and double entendres, available as a WAV file."
And also these nuggets:
"The song was made available to CompuServe’s 2 million users on June 27. Steven Tyler had the money quote in the press release: 'If our fans are out there driving down that information superhighway,' he said, 'then we want to be playing at the truck stop.' Users could access it through a line command, by typing “GO AEROSMITH.” Downloads took 60 to 90 minutes, depending on whether the user had a 9,600 bps modem connection or 14.4 kbps, lightning quick by comparison. There were worries about the servers crashing, but everything went smoothly."
The New York Times covered the song release as well. Neil Strauss wrote the article, and you'll know his name because he wrote Motley Crue's biography, The Dirt. From the New York Times piece (again, my bold):
"At stake may be nothing less than the future of the record business. If songs are available free through a computer's phone line, this leaves record labels, manufacturers and retailers out in the cold. The current state of technology makes it impractical in terms of time and computer storage space to download an entire CD, but several computer companies are working to remedy the matter. More urgent is the matter of copyright. On the vast information network known as Internet, music fans have been making songs by popular acts available free for some time. Several major recording labels are in the process of deciding whether they will lobby for copyright protection on Internet."
I was in eighth grade when this marketing opportunity went down. At that time, Aerosmith was easily the biggest thing in my life - but I didn't have a computer, let alone a CompuServe account, so I didn't know any of this cool history. I'll go out on a limb here and assume at least a couple BBG! regulars downloaded the Aerosmith track 20 years ago.
Reader Comments (12)
Another flashback: at around the same time Billy Idol release _Cyberpunk_. Although his look was gag-inducing, the music was, to my mind, ahead of its time and a bit beyond what the casual fan of Idol was ready to consume (though more deep-diving fans can find some parallels to former band-mate James's _Sigue Sigue Sputnik_ from the decade previous).
I happen to own the limited edition digipack version. I quote a description from online: "This is the first ever music release with multimedia. The limited edition USA version contained a bonus Apple Mac 3.5" Floppy Disc,which contains a Macromedia Director presentation,complete with short loops from the songs on the album,lyrics for the tracks, and information from Billy Idol and others on the man, his music, the album, and the Cyberpunk culture.
System requirements on floppy: MacOS 6.0.7 & 3MB of RAM! Tri-fold digipac container. Release conained many bonus tracks and booklet."
I can't vouch for it being the first of its kind. But as recently as a decade ago, there were very few ways to actually play the darn thing (I also own a CD version). Now it is just a gentle reminder of new tech becoming old tech . . . sorta' like owning a cassette copy of Metallica's _Binge & Purge_ box-set, complete with VHS tape (guilty again).
Step in front of progress and u will get run over is the lesson. There can and will be collateral damage, but progress and what the people want is rule #1
I was in university in the early 90's and had access to a great Internet connection via our computer labs, so I was able to download to my heart's content. Songs, games, videos and other digital files used to be swapped around on message boards, and a single song might be spread over 20 or 30 text messages. The process to get a single song involved downloading & saving each of the 30 messages, and then running a program that would stitch them all together and then convert them to a single digital file. Since most of the song files were well over the 1.44 MB that a floppy disk stored, taking them someplace other than on the computer you downloaded them from meant breaking the files over multiple disks.
You really had to work for your free music in 1992. The real kicker was that since there were no portable digital music players and CD-burners were stupid-expensive, the only place you could then listen to the song was on a PC.
By 1993 or 94, FTP had taken over as the destination for pirated music, and that made things a lot easier.
Hindsight is 20-20 of course, but it floors me that no one in the music biz took advantage of the coming digital revolution. Hundreds of articles, including the NYT article that Allyson referenced, predicted what was going to happen, and it was no great secret. My guess is that they were collectively arrogant and figured that they could hide behind lawsuits & lobbying.
I was a latecomer to digital music and it wasn't until Napster that I was exposed to peer to peer music programs.
I still laugh my head off when I recall seeing Sean (the Napster guy) come out at an awards show wearing a Metallica T-Shirt. Nobody had as big a hate-on for that guy than Metallica.
And yes, the industry should have gotten way ahead of this. Another reason why Steve Jobs was brilliant - in my opinion anyway, but I'm an Apple fan girl so maybe that doesn't count.
The future (well, until something better comes around) is clearly streaming, and the costs there are very reasonable. $10 per month will give you unlimited music from Spotify or rdio. And then there are sites like YouTube, where corporations (via advertising) pay for the music you consume.
that one sentence sums up why the music business is in the shape it's in now. Notice that the labels weren't deciding how to become a part of the digital revolution. NO, they were deciding how to protect their outmoted distribution model by paying off the right politicians.
Good Points, all and, Bryon, you are spot on to bring up YouTube. I think YouTube is it right now. You can listen whenever you want or download free from it and the breadth of music is stunning from Mac Miller's "Faces" Mixtape (Hip-Hop Album of the Year, IMHO) to hidden gem 80's Glam Metal, some of which CDs trade in the thousands.
Also, Rita, love that dude from Napster wearing the Metallica T-Shirt. Sarcasmus Maximus!
And who pays $15 for a CD these days ?
That's why I'm one of the Top 10 Collectors of the Holy Grails of Glam Metal in the World. And that's why they call me... METALBOY!