Month: July 2008

Number One on the Runway

I am reminded of that great song title from Timbuk 3, “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades.”  With economic chaos and skyrocketing oil prices, the future is looking a bit overcast – no need for shades now, huh, but what if that’s an illusion?  In China, the future is so bright that a billion people are putting on sunglasses.  I’ve read that there is more peace and prosperity now than anytime in the history of the world.  Global warming may only be the foot that kicks us in the ass and forces humanity to get its shit together.  A new President could clear those dark clouds on our horizon and brighten up U.S. prospects for decades to come.

We’re all on a jet that’s about to take off for the future, but who is in the cockpit, and what’s our destination?  My generation are all thinking about retirement and I’m wondering if we’re all flying down to Florida to play shuffleboard or dominos all day.  I can remember summer of 1968 like it was tomorrow.  We wanted the Vietnam war to end so we could start building a bright future.  We wanted a lot of change.  We lived on great expectations.  Many of the young felt like they were part of a movement, a movement for change.  Barack and all Democrats worked to sell the same sentiments forty years later.  Is this election the last chance for the Baby Boomers to get it right and achieve their dream?

Protestors used to chant “The Whole World is Watching” and I think our generation felt it was true, even though most of the world lived off the radar of mass communication when we were growing up.  During those mythical years of the 1960s our generation always felt we were number one on the runway taking off for the future, but now, we’re seen as being the generation number one on the runway to retire.  Is it now time for us to be quiet?  Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were both Baby Boomer Presidents.  We may get another boomer, with Barack Obama, or the Silent Generation may have its last chance to have their only President, with John McCain.

I was reminded of my Baby Boomer status when Piers Fawkes at PSFK tagged this site as 1 of 14 blogs he monitors for information about Baby Boomers.  Maybe the whole world is no longer watching us, but at least the marketing people are still keeping an eye on us.  For those who need a generational timeline, see below:

I find it tremendously hard to imagine the mindset of the generations that have come behind us.  First of all, they never demanded to be heard, and as a result of that, they never got the press the Baby Boomers did.  The Greatest Generation are famous for living in historically epic times and their generation was defined by the events they faced.  The Silent Generation made the world for the Baby Boomers and influenced them.  The Baby Boomers embraced rock and roll, but Elvis and the Beatles were from the Silent Generation – an odd nickname, huh?  And as resources such as oil become problematic, will we have a new Greatest Generation that solves those problems?

Signs are everywhere that the young are ready for the boomers to retire, for instance, read “TV Viewers’ Average Age Hits 50” over at Variety, where they whine that the damn people watching TV are too old for their precious 18-49 demographics.  What’s the matter, are the young TV execs afraid their whole industry is a Baby Boomer fad?  The whole world probably didn’t have their eyes on us, but we certainly had our eyes on TV.  Are the newer generations less mass-media oriented?  I’ve read males of certain ages have stopped watching TV altogether.

Is the Baby Boomer’s hour in the spotlight about over.  Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were both born in 1946, making them the two Baby Boomer Presidents.  Strangely, John McCain, born in 1936, a year after Elvis, is from the earlier Silent Generation, so that generation is still hanging in there, and suggests there’s time for the Baby Boomers to cling to the spotlight for another decade or two.  Barrack Obama was born in 1961, making him part of the rear end of the Baby Boomers.  We’ve now had a hippie President and jock President, so it would be great to have a minority President, and hopefully there will even be time for a female Boomer or even a gay Boomer in the White House.  Evidently, our time is not up until the overweight boomer sings.

I’m reading The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria, a tail end boomer himself, born in 1964.  Zakaria’s wise assessment of current world affairs suggests our generation can still have influence for years to come as political pundits.  The Baby Boomers might be moving into their retirement years, but we dominant politics, journalism and opinions, and probably will for awhile.  I can not recommend The Post-American World enough, because Zakaria puts us Baby Boomer Americans in our place by letting us know what the rest of the world was seeing when we thought they were watching.  Our self-centered perspective has blinded us to what was happening with the 95% of the Baby Boomers in the rest of the world.

When you read Variety’s listing of the average age for various TV shows, and see “How I Met Your Mother,” a show about people in their twenties, has an average viewer age of 45, then you start to wonder, where the hell are the young people?  You do see them.  The news is reported by a vast array of beautiful young people.  Movies and television shows are all about the young.  You see them standing behind Obama and McCain, they fight our wars, and they direct movies, write novels, create music, and they fill jobs all around us.  But what do they want?  Where are their spokespeople?

When Generation X taxis out on the runaway where are they going to take us?  When Generation X campaigns for the Presidency, what will be their issues?  You’d think they’d make Global Warming their issue.  Maybe their generation speaks loud and clear and I don’t hear them because I’m insulated by the thickness of my generation.

If Fareed Zakaria and Thomas Friedman are right, not only do we need to hear from Generation X and the Millennials, but we need to hear from their ranks from all over the world.  That old saying, “Think globally, act locally” is more important than ever.

I hate to say this, but maybe the numbers at Variety are more damning than they are suggesting.  If the average age of TV watchers is 50, then television is a has-been media.  What mass media has an average age of 25?  Video games?  Text-messaging?  FaceBook?  I’m sorry, but tuning into Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 seems like checking out of this world in the same way that Timothy Leary advocated dropping out.  Virtual worlds don’t count, only reality.

China and Dubai are growing at speeds and magnitudes that outpace any boom in U.S. history.  The whole world should be watching them instead of “How I Met Your Mother” or whatever equivalent show or video game you’re using to escape from reality at the moment.  Where is this generation’s Bob Dylan that’s writing “Because something is happening here, But you don’t know what it is, Do you, Mr. Jones?” or Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth?”

There’s heavy stuff going down, but where are the young protestors?  2008 is going to be an important election.  It is time for change, just like we thought back in 1968, but this time the biggest issues are more pressing than ever, and if we want a future where we need shades, we all need to be watching.  Whether our plane is taking off for retirement city, or the big city to start a new career, we’re all sailing on the same Spaceship Earth.  Whether you’re 15, 35, 55, 75 or 95 there are some shows on TV we should all be watching, but they ain’t escapist shows, but documentaries about what’s going on around the real world.

Jim

What Does the Demise of the CD and DRM Mean?

Yesterday I went to my favorite Borders bookstore and was shocked to see that they had removed their entire music shopping area.  Life is getting mighty hard for record stores and High Fidelity type dudes.  Now, it’s been awhile since I bought any CDs at Borders, so I won’t miss it, but seeing that big gapping space in the back of the store made me realize that the era of the CD is over.

If you go to Google News and search on DRM, you’ll see all the announcements about how Rhapsody Music will now sell DRM-free songs and albums.  I’m in the process of ripping my old CD collection, which is very time consuming.  From now on, whenever I buy a new song or album I’ll just get the digital edition.  The last CDs my wife and I bought were a few Beatles titles we didn’t already have.  Beatles For Sale might have been our last CD purchase.

It’s a whole new world for music fans, that’s been evolving since the advent of the MP3 player, and especially since the iPod.  But what does this paradigm shift mean?

Cover Art

When music albums shifted from LPs to CDs, cover art moved from major galleries to refrigerator art.  Going from CD to MP3 we lose the art altogether.  I think a marketing angle record companies should pursue is adding cover art to sales of digital albums.  I’d recommend setting up a free standard for desktop art gallery software, like I envisioned in Inventions Wanted #4 – The Desktop Art Gallery.  Or at least back existing desktop software like Webshots.  Then if buyers select a whole album to buy, reward them with several desktop scenes of music related pop art.

Liner Notes

Another feature to be missed is liner notes.  I loved the liner notes on the old huge 12″ record jackets, but hated the microscopic booklets that came with CDs.  It’s time to bring back good liner notes with lyrics and band/fan info in elegantly designed Acrobat Reader files that size to the computer screen.  Maybe music lovers don’t buy albums because they aren’t the art form they used to be.  I know aficionados that still buy vinyl records because they miss the whole experience that was once part of buying an album.

Shopping and Listening

Hanging out in records stores used to a great way to waste time and even a prime activity for dates.  No wonder sales are down.  Without the word-of-mouth recommendations gained from social record buying there’s not a lot of incentive to shop for music like there used to be.  See my post, “Why Has Listening to Music Become as Solitary as Masturbation?”  Record companies need to invent software for FaceBook that puts people together for song listening parties.

Also, online record stores like iTunes, Rhapsody and Amazon need to create a virtual store experience that enhances the shopping experience beyond searching a database for new music.  One feature I would like to see is accurate discographies that list which songs are in print and are for sale and which are out of print.  There’s no reason in our digital universe that all an artist’s work should not stay in print.

Peach Crates

In the old days people stored their albums in wooden crates that made it easy to flip through the LPs one by one and easily see the covers.  When you met a new friend you’d go through their LPs to see what kind of person they were.  An album collection, with their beautiful artistic covers, were as revealing as a deck of Tarot cards laid out.  Kids today can give each other their whole collections, but what good is that?  Stolen music is indiscriminate.  And long iTunes Library lists are just rows and rows of black and white words.  No personality.  Record companies should allow music fans to decorate their blogs with songs, cover art and lyrics.

Ownership

The downside of digital music is ownership.  Protecting your digital collection is going to be a hassle.  Sharing is iffy.  Selling used albums on eBay will be weird.  Handing down your fabulous collection to your children probably won’t happen.

Personally, I think MP3s are not the ultimate format for music, and even wrote my opinions in “Are MP3s at the End of Their Lifecycle?”   My prediction, people are going to discover that owning invisible intangible objects will be a pain, lacking in style and glamour.

Unless music is freely traded, it’s going to be hard for songs to become hits.  If songs are freely traded, nobody will want to buy them.  Thus, the value of subscription music.

Playlists

Playlists will be the sharing medium of the future.  Everyone will be their own DJ – creating musical mood experiences, showing off talents for discovery, and defining identity.  Send your favorite playlist creations out to your friends, and if they have a subscription to the songs, they will play.  Or build blog pages and web sites around playlists, so when surfers drop by that are subscribers, they will have instant background music.

Next

I expect music to start disappearing from Targets and Walmarts.  Not everyone has a MP3 player yet, but the tsunami is bearing down on us.  It will be interesting to see what an all digital music world will be like.  Won’t it be strange to live in a world and never to see a LP or CD?

Jim