To my complete surprise, I found an article on Slashdot this morning, in which Reuters was quoted as saying that Nokia is going to ditch Symbian on the N series of phones. Instead of the trusted in-house OS, Nokia is moving their flagship product to MeeGo.
For those of you who don't know, MeeGo is the merger or Nokia's very on Maemo project and Intel's Moblin. All three projects have the same aim: to provide a full Linux distribution for mobile devices. Nokia's main aim is the smartphone market, while Intel started out thinking about MIDs and netbooks.
The move on Nokia's part is quite unexpected, since they just recently reiterated that Symbian would always be at the core of their smartphone offering. Symbian is great, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't want to develop for it. It's getting old in the tooth and requires a lot of work to get used to.
Now, what does that mean in the mobile landscape? Why would Nokia move in this direction? What does that all mean in context?
2010-06-24
Kindle and Calibre
I've been using Calibre on and off to get content to my Kindle, and I have to admit the software is gaining a lot in functionality as it matures. The version label (currently 0.6.42) doesn't do functionality, stability, and ease of use justice at all, and I highly recommend it to anyone with a Kindle, regardless of use.
What do I do with it? I mainly add all those files I couldn't otherwise read on Kindle. Calibre allows me to easily do the following:
To get a web page onto your Kindle, for instance, you just save the page as HTML and convert it by simply adding it as a new ebook to Calibre. You automatically get the best feature of Calibre: once you tell it what the target device is (Kindle, in this case), it will automatically convert to a format (.mobi) that works on that device, and it will format the ebook for he device properties.
RSS feeds are solved differently (and justly so) in that they are scheduled in a separate module. You can add your own RSS feeds, and there are some pre-defined ones. The adding process is not as straightforward as it could be, mostly because RSS feeds are so different - some come with full articles, others with a brief preview, others still with just a link. Once you choose the feeds your are interested in, you decide how often you want them updated, and Calibre will download, convert, and push as often as you'd like.
For PDF and ePub files, the process is the same as for web pages. The main difference here is that some PDF and ePub files are protected. Calibre doesn't know how to deal with that (which is quite to be expected). Otherwise, it does a pretty good job, handling only headers and footers poorly.
Gutenberg is finally smarting up to Kindle and is starting to publish some of its ebooks in .mobi format. That means you can download them straight to your computer and either add them using Calibre of simply adding them to your Kindle documents folder. Really dead simple.
I would be perfectly happy with Calibre if it added just two features:
What do I do with it? I mainly add all those files I couldn't otherwise read on Kindle. Calibre allows me to easily do the following:
- Display web pages
- Get RSS feeds
- Convert text-based PDF files
- Show ePub files
- Access Project Gutenberg ebooks
To get a web page onto your Kindle, for instance, you just save the page as HTML and convert it by simply adding it as a new ebook to Calibre. You automatically get the best feature of Calibre: once you tell it what the target device is (Kindle, in this case), it will automatically convert to a format (.mobi) that works on that device, and it will format the ebook for he device properties.
RSS feeds are solved differently (and justly so) in that they are scheduled in a separate module. You can add your own RSS feeds, and there are some pre-defined ones. The adding process is not as straightforward as it could be, mostly because RSS feeds are so different - some come with full articles, others with a brief preview, others still with just a link. Once you choose the feeds your are interested in, you decide how often you want them updated, and Calibre will download, convert, and push as often as you'd like.
For PDF and ePub files, the process is the same as for web pages. The main difference here is that some PDF and ePub files are protected. Calibre doesn't know how to deal with that (which is quite to be expected). Otherwise, it does a pretty good job, handling only headers and footers poorly.
Gutenberg is finally smarting up to Kindle and is starting to publish some of its ebooks in .mobi format. That means you can download them straight to your computer and either add them using Calibre of simply adding them to your Kindle documents folder. Really dead simple.
I would be perfectly happy with Calibre if it added just two features:
- Sharing of "recipes." Things like RSS feeds and header/footer detection need advanced settings that are recipes of some form (XPath for header/footer, for instance). It makes very little sense to write a recipe if you are the only one that uses it, and there is no easy way to share them. I know it's a pain to set up a repository for automatic sharing, but it would make like so much easier. The current recipe for PDF header/footer, for instance, detects the headers and footers that web browsers put on printed pages. Admittedly a good default - but what am I going to do with the PDF of a book, with the standard chapter heading and page number as h/f?
- Direct download of URLs. It annoys me that I have to download a file from the web - be it HTML or .mobi - to add it to my list of books. I guess direct integration with ebook providers (for free or for pay) would be really welcome, as would an option to add a book from URL.
2010-06-18
Quick Greasemonkey Script for Kelley Blue Book
One of the most frustrating user interfaces on the planet is that of Kelley Blue Book. It just seems to be designed around the idea of making you click as many times as possible to get to the information you need, instead of around the notion of quick access. Is that because KBB wants to maximize ad impressions?
Well, it really doesn't matter. There is only a certain amount of clicks I will endure until I start typing URLs manually into a browser, and KBB got me there. In frustration.
How does the navigation work? Well, it's essentially tree navigation. You choose first whether you want trade-in or retail values. Then you select the model year, then the manufacturer, and finally the model (and later on, options). That's great if you want to look up the values for a particular car, as for instance if you intend to sell yours.
Now, imagine you are looking to buy a particular type of car - say an AWD sedan. You settled on either an Audi A4 or A6, or a Subaru (any of many models). Your budget is constrained (yeah, well) but you are less interested in the car's age. I would think that's the more "normal" case.
So, now you are armed with a list of cars (from Craigslist, cars.com, etc.) and you need to look up their value. Say you found two Forresters, one from 2004, one from 2005. You found an A4 from 2008 and an A6 from 2003. You got an Outback from 2001. They are all nominally in your price range.
So, off you go to KBB. Logically, you'd want to focus on the two manufacturers or six models you are considering, but in KBB, you have to first hand in the year. After you chose the year, you can drill down to the car you are considering. When you are looking up the next Forrester, no help: you have to go all the way to the top (the year) and drill down.
Of course, if you look at the URL, you notice that it specifies year, then manufacturer, then model. If you just change the year in the URL, then you find what you want. Huh? You don't have to go all the way to the top?
Now, why are they navigating this way? It makes no sense from a user's perspective: when I say I want to look up the value of a 2006 Subaru Outback, the next logical thing to look up is a 2005 Subaru Outback, not a 2006 Lamborghini Countach. But the deal is that the navigation is organized around availability: the year constrains the possible manufacturers (not much), and then the models available.
That means that the programmer found out that each model is available only in certain years, and hence built the navigation around that fact.
The rest of the world thinks that's stupid.
Hence, the need for a very simple Greasemonkey script that adds the missing navigation. You get to the page you requested (e.g. for the 2006 Subaru Outback) , and links to the year, manufacturer, and model (and trim, where available) are augmented by drop down boxes that allow you to choose alternatives. You can click on the year drop down and select a different year for the model listed. Or you could click on the model and see an alternative - all other things equal.
Let me know if you are interested in the script. It's not packaged for public consumption, yet, but if you want it, you can gave it!
Well, it really doesn't matter. There is only a certain amount of clicks I will endure until I start typing URLs manually into a browser, and KBB got me there. In frustration.
How does the navigation work? Well, it's essentially tree navigation. You choose first whether you want trade-in or retail values. Then you select the model year, then the manufacturer, and finally the model (and later on, options). That's great if you want to look up the values for a particular car, as for instance if you intend to sell yours.
Now, imagine you are looking to buy a particular type of car - say an AWD sedan. You settled on either an Audi A4 or A6, or a Subaru (any of many models). Your budget is constrained (yeah, well) but you are less interested in the car's age. I would think that's the more "normal" case.
So, now you are armed with a list of cars (from Craigslist, cars.com, etc.) and you need to look up their value. Say you found two Forresters, one from 2004, one from 2005. You found an A4 from 2008 and an A6 from 2003. You got an Outback from 2001. They are all nominally in your price range.
So, off you go to KBB. Logically, you'd want to focus on the two manufacturers or six models you are considering, but in KBB, you have to first hand in the year. After you chose the year, you can drill down to the car you are considering. When you are looking up the next Forrester, no help: you have to go all the way to the top (the year) and drill down.
Of course, if you look at the URL, you notice that it specifies year, then manufacturer, then model. If you just change the year in the URL, then you find what you want. Huh? You don't have to go all the way to the top?
Now, why are they navigating this way? It makes no sense from a user's perspective: when I say I want to look up the value of a 2006 Subaru Outback, the next logical thing to look up is a 2005 Subaru Outback, not a 2006 Lamborghini Countach. But the deal is that the navigation is organized around availability: the year constrains the possible manufacturers (not much), and then the models available.
That means that the programmer found out that each model is available only in certain years, and hence built the navigation around that fact.
The rest of the world thinks that's stupid.
Hence, the need for a very simple Greasemonkey script that adds the missing navigation. You get to the page you requested (e.g. for the 2006 Subaru Outback) , and links to the year, manufacturer, and model (and trim, where available) are augmented by drop down boxes that allow you to choose alternatives. You can click on the year drop down and select a different year for the model listed. Or you could click on the model and see an alternative - all other things equal.
Let me know if you are interested in the script. It's not packaged for public consumption, yet, but if you want it, you can gave it!
2010-06-11
Compact Flash - Long Obsolete?
A few years back, I thought I'd revive my days of taking pictures and bought myself a digital SLR. Back then, they were not all the rage, mostly because they were so incredibly expensive and the pictures they shot were not much better than the point-and-shooters'. Seriously, if it hadn't been that I was already used to SLRs and that I knew how powerful the lenses are, I would have done without.
I bought a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT. I am not going to bore you with the specs, since every camera you get for free with a two-pack of ink cartridges is better these days, but it shot passable pictures (not particularly good ones, though) and I thought getting the tele lens out for the AIDS ride might be a good idea. You know, shoot the incoming finishers when they are not two inches away, that kind of thing.
Well, turns out the camera had a stinky 2G card. Back in the day, I am sure, it cost a fortune. I may have chosen it because it was the best bargain, but I could have probably bought two ink cartridges for the price of that one... (Sorry if you didn't follow the sarcasm.) I thought, well, you can get 8G cards for $20, I'll just head out to my fave store, The Shack (or whatever they call themselves today), and get myself a Terabyte of them.
I got there and looked at "options." There was one card available, a 4G card for $30. It seemed like a seriously bad deal. I actually half-way thought CF cards had gone out of style and that a SD to CF adapter might be the way to go. They didn't have any of that.
Instead, I decided to go to my least fave store, Best Buy. They opened a new store just across the street, and between the Shack a few blocks East and this new Best Buy, I am not sure how long that little store will survive. In any case, I get into the BB and manage to dodge the first wave of drones that come to "help" me (i.e. upsell me to whatever they need to throw out today).
When I stupidly think that the memory cards are going to be with the portable hard drives, a drone attacks. He's actually kinda nice and not as salesly as I am used to from the store on Harrison in San Francisco. He doesn't know of CF cards, though, hasn't seen them. He is certain, though, they don't carry an adapter. He runs back to the computer and just in time for me to ponder whether I should leave, he comes back with news: they are in store. The cards, not the adapter.
We walk to the other wall of the digital camera section and see the CF cards. There are four types: outrageously expensive 4GB, outrageously expensive 8GB, and outrageously expensive 16GB. I mean, the prices were laughable - the 16GB ran over $250! For that price, I can easily buy a 2TB portable drive!
Of course, they were supposed to be ultra-fast. But my camera is ultra-slow, so it doesn't really matter. I ended up picking the 4GB model, praying that everything will work out fine. Then I walked to the digital SLR section and looked. All of them switched to SD now.
How quickly whole standards obsolete!
I bought a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT. I am not going to bore you with the specs, since every camera you get for free with a two-pack of ink cartridges is better these days, but it shot passable pictures (not particularly good ones, though) and I thought getting the tele lens out for the AIDS ride might be a good idea. You know, shoot the incoming finishers when they are not two inches away, that kind of thing.
Well, turns out the camera had a stinky 2G card. Back in the day, I am sure, it cost a fortune. I may have chosen it because it was the best bargain, but I could have probably bought two ink cartridges for the price of that one... (Sorry if you didn't follow the sarcasm.) I thought, well, you can get 8G cards for $20, I'll just head out to my fave store, The Shack (or whatever they call themselves today), and get myself a Terabyte of them.
I got there and looked at "options." There was one card available, a 4G card for $30. It seemed like a seriously bad deal. I actually half-way thought CF cards had gone out of style and that a SD to CF adapter might be the way to go. They didn't have any of that.
Instead, I decided to go to my least fave store, Best Buy. They opened a new store just across the street, and between the Shack a few blocks East and this new Best Buy, I am not sure how long that little store will survive. In any case, I get into the BB and manage to dodge the first wave of drones that come to "help" me (i.e. upsell me to whatever they need to throw out today).
When I stupidly think that the memory cards are going to be with the portable hard drives, a drone attacks. He's actually kinda nice and not as salesly as I am used to from the store on Harrison in San Francisco. He doesn't know of CF cards, though, hasn't seen them. He is certain, though, they don't carry an adapter. He runs back to the computer and just in time for me to ponder whether I should leave, he comes back with news: they are in store. The cards, not the adapter.
We walk to the other wall of the digital camera section and see the CF cards. There are four types: outrageously expensive 4GB, outrageously expensive 8GB, and outrageously expensive 16GB. I mean, the prices were laughable - the 16GB ran over $250! For that price, I can easily buy a 2TB portable drive!
Of course, they were supposed to be ultra-fast. But my camera is ultra-slow, so it doesn't really matter. I ended up picking the 4GB model, praying that everything will work out fine. Then I walked to the digital SLR section and looked. All of them switched to SD now.
How quickly whole standards obsolete!
2010-06-08
My Ideal Phone
I am OK with my N900, but not really happy. The software is still buggy, the thing is too heavy, and the slider keyboard is useless. I do like certain things about it, tough, and that got me thinking: what would a perfect phone look like?
Form Factor
I find that the bigger the screen, the more I like a phone. Actually, it's mostly the resolution that I like - I couldn't live with the crappy resolution of the 3G iPhone, and the resolution of current Android devices (and of the N900) is OK. Even better, though, would be a phone with a screen that folds in the middle. A little like the current crop of eReaders, only that those tend to have two different screens (one eInk, the other LCD-type). You either flip the phone open (screens protected inside) or the screens are on the outside (one turned off until you flip the phone flat). That way you get twice the screen real estate at half the carrying size. Gotta love that!
Battery Life
Clearly the worst gripe about smart phones is their outlandishly crappy battery life. The N900 fits with most and doesn't quite manage a full work day without recharge, but that's absolutely unacceptable on a device you use for mobile communication. Clearly, we need phones that can last a full 24 hours at average use, which includes constant texting and at least two hours talk time.
Or....
At the very least we need an easier way to charge our phones. I am not talking wireless charging, necessarily, but at the very very least an end to the endless number of plugs and cables. Stop the madness, standardize on one single power input, and make it possible for us to have power outlets into which you can directly plug a phone.
Software
The current crop of phone operating systems isn't quite there, yet. The problems vary, but it's mostly a combination of three factors:
The N900, on the other hand, would have the winning combination. You can simply take software written for the desktop and recompile it for the phone - make your changes to the user interface, and you are done. That gives you enormous leverage: you can write the backend code once and you know it will work (as is the case with the standard DB format on it, SQLite), you can reuse text mode utilities if you just recompile them, you can stick with whatever expertise you have already.
The problem with the N900 is one of implementation. It's the winning idea, but it isn't well done. For instance, it's a serious bitch to get the development environment going - you have to wade through a ton of web pages that are partially outdated, and even the virtual image offered is not kept current. Things that should be easy (e.g., getting a current re-build of a text mode app for Maemo) are hard. Why not have a current list of Linux source packages in Debian and build them on Maemo by default?
I think Maemo has the same problem that KDE ran into as of lately: great idea, but not enough people working on it, and those that are are too ambitious about their own agenda.
Connectivity
People of the world, unite! Demand that your smart phone be what you expect it to be: your computer when you don't want to carry a computer. How come so few smart phones have USB hosts? I want to be able to plug a printer, a scanner, a card reader into my phone. I want to be able to attach my phone to a TV via HDMI. I want my phone to have a standard interface for extensions, so that I can easily plug in a GPS module, or a better camera, or a credit card scanner, or a heart rate monitor.
Manufacturers are making a huge mistake by ignoring connectivity options. Of course, I understand where that comes from: any new connector means thousands of support calls, every open connectivity channel means compatibility issues left and right. Whoever starts the movement is going to have to deal with a host of issues.
But you know what: it's absolutely worth it. Remember when USB came out? It just didn't work. You needed drivers for everything, half the USB devices had drivers so poorly written, they'd crash your computer, and their were mutually incompatible half the time. It was a nightmare But now, is there anything easier than USB plug & play?
That's probably the reason the first connectivity option I mentioned is USB. Just add USB host, and we'll figure out a way to get modules for our phone that can connect, and software that will work with it.
End App-centricity
One of my worst gripes about the N900 is that the software isn't standardized. There are some apps that use Berkeley DB, most others use SQLite, and a third set uses incompatible formats. Some things are done well - for instance, the Conversations widget handles both SMS and IM, and the Phone widget does both Skype and GSM well. But there is no overriding architecture for that.
The idea should be that all data are stored in a central repository, and the apps should have access to it. Apps shouldn't even be allowed to store anything in a format that is not the central repository's, especially if it is user-dependent and fast-changing (like messages of any kind).
Examples? The email app stinks big time. That's mostly because it has no unified inbox, so that every GMail account I have requires a bunch of clicks to get to. It also does late binding, which means it will tell you there is a new message, but when you want to see it, you have to first load the current server view. Most importantly, though, you cannot combine things that have the same frequency as email, like RSS feeds, into your email view.
The idea is the life stream - a single point of entry that combines all the data you want into a single view. There you can filter the types as you wish (if you wish). Things are arranged chronologically and updated automatically. They scroll on their own. There are sources of data. There is a view. You can interact with the data the way you see fit.
But don't force me to switch apps just because I want to see more data. Even in a phone that does multitasking well, it's a pain.
Form Factor
I find that the bigger the screen, the more I like a phone. Actually, it's mostly the resolution that I like - I couldn't live with the crappy resolution of the 3G iPhone, and the resolution of current Android devices (and of the N900) is OK. Even better, though, would be a phone with a screen that folds in the middle. A little like the current crop of eReaders, only that those tend to have two different screens (one eInk, the other LCD-type). You either flip the phone open (screens protected inside) or the screens are on the outside (one turned off until you flip the phone flat). That way you get twice the screen real estate at half the carrying size. Gotta love that!
Battery Life
Clearly the worst gripe about smart phones is their outlandishly crappy battery life. The N900 fits with most and doesn't quite manage a full work day without recharge, but that's absolutely unacceptable on a device you use for mobile communication. Clearly, we need phones that can last a full 24 hours at average use, which includes constant texting and at least two hours talk time.
Or....
At the very least we need an easier way to charge our phones. I am not talking wireless charging, necessarily, but at the very very least an end to the endless number of plugs and cables. Stop the madness, standardize on one single power input, and make it possible for us to have power outlets into which you can directly plug a phone.
Software
The current crop of phone operating systems isn't quite there, yet. The problems vary, but it's mostly a combination of three factors:
- the OS vendors tries a lock-in strategy
- the relationship between phone and desktop OS is not clearly outlined
- the limitations of the tool chains make it hard to develop
The N900, on the other hand, would have the winning combination. You can simply take software written for the desktop and recompile it for the phone - make your changes to the user interface, and you are done. That gives you enormous leverage: you can write the backend code once and you know it will work (as is the case with the standard DB format on it, SQLite), you can reuse text mode utilities if you just recompile them, you can stick with whatever expertise you have already.
The problem with the N900 is one of implementation. It's the winning idea, but it isn't well done. For instance, it's a serious bitch to get the development environment going - you have to wade through a ton of web pages that are partially outdated, and even the virtual image offered is not kept current. Things that should be easy (e.g., getting a current re-build of a text mode app for Maemo) are hard. Why not have a current list of Linux source packages in Debian and build them on Maemo by default?
I think Maemo has the same problem that KDE ran into as of lately: great idea, but not enough people working on it, and those that are are too ambitious about their own agenda.
Connectivity
People of the world, unite! Demand that your smart phone be what you expect it to be: your computer when you don't want to carry a computer. How come so few smart phones have USB hosts? I want to be able to plug a printer, a scanner, a card reader into my phone. I want to be able to attach my phone to a TV via HDMI. I want my phone to have a standard interface for extensions, so that I can easily plug in a GPS module, or a better camera, or a credit card scanner, or a heart rate monitor.
Manufacturers are making a huge mistake by ignoring connectivity options. Of course, I understand where that comes from: any new connector means thousands of support calls, every open connectivity channel means compatibility issues left and right. Whoever starts the movement is going to have to deal with a host of issues.
But you know what: it's absolutely worth it. Remember when USB came out? It just didn't work. You needed drivers for everything, half the USB devices had drivers so poorly written, they'd crash your computer, and their were mutually incompatible half the time. It was a nightmare But now, is there anything easier than USB plug & play?
That's probably the reason the first connectivity option I mentioned is USB. Just add USB host, and we'll figure out a way to get modules for our phone that can connect, and software that will work with it.
End App-centricity
One of my worst gripes about the N900 is that the software isn't standardized. There are some apps that use Berkeley DB, most others use SQLite, and a third set uses incompatible formats. Some things are done well - for instance, the Conversations widget handles both SMS and IM, and the Phone widget does both Skype and GSM well. But there is no overriding architecture for that.
The idea should be that all data are stored in a central repository, and the apps should have access to it. Apps shouldn't even be allowed to store anything in a format that is not the central repository's, especially if it is user-dependent and fast-changing (like messages of any kind).
Examples? The email app stinks big time. That's mostly because it has no unified inbox, so that every GMail account I have requires a bunch of clicks to get to. It also does late binding, which means it will tell you there is a new message, but when you want to see it, you have to first load the current server view. Most importantly, though, you cannot combine things that have the same frequency as email, like RSS feeds, into your email view.
The idea is the life stream - a single point of entry that combines all the data you want into a single view. There you can filter the types as you wish (if you wish). Things are arranged chronologically and updated automatically. They scroll on their own. There are sources of data. There is a view. You can interact with the data the way you see fit.
But don't force me to switch apps just because I want to see more data. Even in a phone that does multitasking well, it's a pain.
2010-06-07
MMS on Nokia N900/T-Mobile
OK, this is the latest on N900 and T-Mobile MMS. It works, but you have to figure out a few things. To save you the time and aggravation, here is my recipe:
[Oh, and by the way - the settings will work only if you are on the T-Mobile Internet connection. WiFi won't work.]
- Download and install (via Application Manager) fMMS.
- In fMMS, go to Settings -> Internet Connection Settings
- Get the current settings from this page (they worked for me)
- You are ready to go
- Access point name: wap.voicestream.com
- MMSC: http://mms.msg.eng.t-mobile.com/mms/wapenc
- User name:
- Password:
- HTTP proxy: 216.155.165.50
[Oh, and by the way - the settings will work only if you are on the T-Mobile Internet connection. WiFi won't work.]
2010-06-03
Mashups, Lady GaGa, and the Rebirth of Pop
A slightly unusual post today. I'll talk for a change about music, even if with a firm rooting in technology.
As someone who lived through the 80s, I can say that whatever you may think of politics, economics, fashion, or architecture, you'll have to admit that music in that decade was exciting. Sure, the 60s had the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, etc. - but the 80s had by far the best pop music. In addition, they started an explosion of musical movements and genres (rap, punk, hip hop, etc.) that came to fruition (and popularity) a lot later.
There were, as of my reckoning, two main reasons for this explosion. For one, the CD came on the market and with it a completely new ball game for music distribution. CDs were incredibly cheap to mass-produce, incredibly accurate in their rendition, and the players were obviously equivalent. Everybody could listen to high quality music from a cheap player, and CDs could be sold at extremely low cost.
The other reason is the advent of PC technology. Married with the MIDI interface for musical instruments, it put music in everyone's reach. A two man band could perform the same music that until then required a whole band, and professional recording was increasingly affordable. The democratization in music had begun, and the fruits were clearly visible.
The 90s brought a double shock. For one, there was enormous consolidation in the music industry, with smaller labels being gobbled up by larger ones, and these in turn by even larger ones. The end result was a choking off of the creativity and inventiveness of small labels in favor of big names. Even those big names, though, were choked off, as the story of Prince shows quite clearly.
The second component, in a wonderful symmetry to the perfect duo of the 80s, was technological. In the 90s, technology to copy CDs became more and more widely available, and the long decline in sales of music began.
The new Millennium brought an intensification of the trend. For one, there was the Internet: the perfect medium for the transmission of digital files. Napster started something that became clearly unstoppable, while the music labels continued their consolidation and rejection of a search for quality over the predictable.
You see, music has had a trend to simplification. Pop music in particular had started a long progression towards less and less content in music. You had an idea - a new melody, beat, or harmony - and you'd extend it for four minutes. That would be fine and in the trend of he time - the mixing shops would take your song and extend it from four to eight or even twelve minutes.
Going dancing soon became an exercise in boredom, at least as far as the music was concerned. You'd listen to something that would go on forever, pulsating its way into your brain until you zoned out. Music became the background, not the reason for dancing any more.
In doing so, music bucked a trend towards increasing complexity and information density that the Internet has brought on. Consider the new trend in editing: take a scene with low information content (such as a person moving on a straight trajectory) and increase the speed in editing, acting as if the viewer had used the fast forward button. That's the trend: make information more compact, give me a constant stream of information, don't bore me. We have become very efficient information processors, and the Internet has become the main source for our constant desire for information - and fuels increased ability to process information.
Music couldn't skip the trend forever. The information density in music had to increase again, making music richer than it was any time in the past. We wouldn't accept a musical idea spread over four minutes for long, things had to change.
The first ones to do something about it were DJs. They took matters in their own hand and decided to do something innovative: combine different songs into one. For it to work, the songs had to have similar beats and compatible chord progressions - and lo and behold, the lack of imagination in music made that all possible!
It so came to pass that mashups became all the rage. You can hear all sorts of mashups, for instance by typing "mashup" in the YouTube search bar. Some are combinations of current pop chart songs, some combine those with rock and roll classics. An astonishing amount of them mixes Eurhythmics' Sweet Dreams (are Made of This) with whatever flavor of the day is available.
A second degree of mashup is the multi-mash. DJ Earworm is an outstanding example of this kind of work - since 2007 he has produced a mashup of the top 25 most popular songs of the year (amongst other work). These mashups are staggering in quality and complexity and succeed in creating a new genre in music, one where other people's songs are the instruments used to create a new song. (Oddly, that's basically the idea that Edgar Varese had 50 years ago. His music, though, sounds really alien and frightening.)
Enters Lady GaGa. Those who know here point to her whole persona as the reason for her success: the outfits, the political opinions, the collaboration with other artists. That's all very true, but without innovative music, Lady GaGa would not succeed.
Listening to her most popular songs, one notices that they are more complex than typical pop songs. Instead of the simple aba or ababa structure, in which chorus and narrative alternate, her songs have three, four, five key musical concepts that are followed around and alternated. Bad Romance, the crazed sinfonietta whose video became the most watched in YouTube history, is particularly rich with unrelated themes. Lady GaGa is also perfectly able to have those themes play with each other, adding a mashup element to the dramatic complexity of her music.
You may like the Lady or not, but you'll find out that soon everybody is going to write songs like hers - or even more complex. And we can get back to the musical explosion of the 80s.
As someone who lived through the 80s, I can say that whatever you may think of politics, economics, fashion, or architecture, you'll have to admit that music in that decade was exciting. Sure, the 60s had the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, etc. - but the 80s had by far the best pop music. In addition, they started an explosion of musical movements and genres (rap, punk, hip hop, etc.) that came to fruition (and popularity) a lot later.
There were, as of my reckoning, two main reasons for this explosion. For one, the CD came on the market and with it a completely new ball game for music distribution. CDs were incredibly cheap to mass-produce, incredibly accurate in their rendition, and the players were obviously equivalent. Everybody could listen to high quality music from a cheap player, and CDs could be sold at extremely low cost.
The other reason is the advent of PC technology. Married with the MIDI interface for musical instruments, it put music in everyone's reach. A two man band could perform the same music that until then required a whole band, and professional recording was increasingly affordable. The democratization in music had begun, and the fruits were clearly visible.
The 90s brought a double shock. For one, there was enormous consolidation in the music industry, with smaller labels being gobbled up by larger ones, and these in turn by even larger ones. The end result was a choking off of the creativity and inventiveness of small labels in favor of big names. Even those big names, though, were choked off, as the story of Prince shows quite clearly.
The second component, in a wonderful symmetry to the perfect duo of the 80s, was technological. In the 90s, technology to copy CDs became more and more widely available, and the long decline in sales of music began.
The new Millennium brought an intensification of the trend. For one, there was the Internet: the perfect medium for the transmission of digital files. Napster started something that became clearly unstoppable, while the music labels continued their consolidation and rejection of a search for quality over the predictable.
You see, music has had a trend to simplification. Pop music in particular had started a long progression towards less and less content in music. You had an idea - a new melody, beat, or harmony - and you'd extend it for four minutes. That would be fine and in the trend of he time - the mixing shops would take your song and extend it from four to eight or even twelve minutes.
Going dancing soon became an exercise in boredom, at least as far as the music was concerned. You'd listen to something that would go on forever, pulsating its way into your brain until you zoned out. Music became the background, not the reason for dancing any more.
In doing so, music bucked a trend towards increasing complexity and information density that the Internet has brought on. Consider the new trend in editing: take a scene with low information content (such as a person moving on a straight trajectory) and increase the speed in editing, acting as if the viewer had used the fast forward button. That's the trend: make information more compact, give me a constant stream of information, don't bore me. We have become very efficient information processors, and the Internet has become the main source for our constant desire for information - and fuels increased ability to process information.
Music couldn't skip the trend forever. The information density in music had to increase again, making music richer than it was any time in the past. We wouldn't accept a musical idea spread over four minutes for long, things had to change.
The first ones to do something about it were DJs. They took matters in their own hand and decided to do something innovative: combine different songs into one. For it to work, the songs had to have similar beats and compatible chord progressions - and lo and behold, the lack of imagination in music made that all possible!
It so came to pass that mashups became all the rage. You can hear all sorts of mashups, for instance by typing "mashup" in the YouTube search bar. Some are combinations of current pop chart songs, some combine those with rock and roll classics. An astonishing amount of them mixes Eurhythmics' Sweet Dreams (are Made of This) with whatever flavor of the day is available.
A second degree of mashup is the multi-mash. DJ Earworm is an outstanding example of this kind of work - since 2007 he has produced a mashup of the top 25 most popular songs of the year (amongst other work). These mashups are staggering in quality and complexity and succeed in creating a new genre in music, one where other people's songs are the instruments used to create a new song. (Oddly, that's basically the idea that Edgar Varese had 50 years ago. His music, though, sounds really alien and frightening.)
Enters Lady GaGa. Those who know here point to her whole persona as the reason for her success: the outfits, the political opinions, the collaboration with other artists. That's all very true, but without innovative music, Lady GaGa would not succeed.
Listening to her most popular songs, one notices that they are more complex than typical pop songs. Instead of the simple aba or ababa structure, in which chorus and narrative alternate, her songs have three, four, five key musical concepts that are followed around and alternated. Bad Romance, the crazed sinfonietta whose video became the most watched in YouTube history, is particularly rich with unrelated themes. Lady GaGa is also perfectly able to have those themes play with each other, adding a mashup element to the dramatic complexity of her music.
You may like the Lady or not, but you'll find out that soon everybody is going to write songs like hers - or even more complex. And we can get back to the musical explosion of the 80s.
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