So much for legally purchased music.

[dreamshark]

I spent $20 to order a real physical CD online from Rounder Records, even though I'm starting to consider getting rid of some of my physical CDs once they are digitized. I wanted a physical copy of this one because it's traditional and folk songs and I wanted the liner notes. So it arrived yesterday with nothing in the jewel case except the CD and a cheaply printed representation of the album art. The liner notes are IN PDF FORM ON THE GODDAM DISK!!!

Are we just assuming that nobody actually plays CDs on a stereo system in the living room any more and actually handles the CD case? This just infuriates me. I'm trying to figure out whether to print out the liner notes so they can be kept with the CD or just scan through them once on the computer. Naturally, the notes are not formatted in a way that makes them in any way inviting to print. The goddam file is 16 pages long. I'll have to copy the song notes out of the middle of the pictures and biographical stuff and reformat them to a reasonable print size if I want a usable printout of the lyrics. GRRRR.

Comments

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I don't mind extensive liner notes being in pdf form (as long as you can still play the CD in your stereo, which should work), but it shouldn't be a substitute for cover art and track listing.

Now, if the pdf had poster size art to be printed, or even vinyl album sized art, that would be another thing. I suppose the real limit is a piece of paper. Extras are good.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Well, okay, there was also a back insert on the CD case with a track list. I wanted the lyrics. The PDF liner notes say right at the beginning that these are the original liner notes from the vinyl album. If they somehow managed to scrape together enough money to print the liner notes on paper for the album, I think they should do the same thing for the CD. There ought to be some value add that makes it worthwhile to buy an album for $16 plus shipping instead of just downloading it from iTunes for $9.99 (or free).

I did take the time to separate the song lyrics from the other puffery, and it took over an hour to format the lyrics so they would print properly. I hate hate hate PDF files. They look ugly on the screen unless you read them at the exact zoom level they were recorded at and the text contains embedded carriage returns in all the wrong places(but tends to lose inter-paragraph spacing.)