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HEY HEY WHAT CAN I DO?
Confessions of a Napster user
We got a CD burner last week, which means we joined the online community of music lovers who "trade" songs via Napster. No sooner do we get the thing hooked up than Shawn Fanning and company are on Capitol Hill, beseeching the Senate Judiciary Committee to practice the time-honored Republican business practice of laissez-faire.
As usual, the keg is kicked the moment I get to the party. But I wonder -- should the feds bust the party? And, for that matter, is the party worth attending?
First, a bit of background. Contrary to popular belief, Napster is not a massive database of Metallica songs. Rather, it's a conduit through which users can share electronic files. The software allows you to download songs from every computer connected to the Napster community. Think of it as the cyberpunk love child of Karl Marx and Adam Smith.
You feel, when you first log in, like the proverbial kid in the candy store. Virtually any song you can think of is there for the taking, free of charge. Sure, some of the files are incomplete or mislabeled. Sometimes the transfer is interrupted before the download is complete. But with enough time and patience, you can amass a virtually unlimited library of music, without leaving your swivel chair.
All this free trading of music has the record companies and artists up in arms. Their argument: the swapping of files on Napster is akin to piracy. That the sharing of files is really no different than making a mix tape -- and one that most people can only play at their computer -- seems not to matter to the Napster nemeses, led by heavy metal outfit Metallica.
Do they have a case? I think not. The stuff I chase down on Napster is either unavailable on CD, obscure songs whose albums I would never buy regardless, or tracks I want to sample before making a purchase. I don't know that this has much of an impact on record sales.
Much of Napster's offerings are rarities, bootlegs, demos, and other material not for sale in the record store. My brother, a heavy Napster user, told me he targets unreleased live tracks almost exclusively. "I got an eight-minute version of 'Round and Round,'" he said, referring to a cheese metal song by Ratt that I also downloaded. "It's great."
Of the 20 some odd songs I've downloaded thus far, three were bootleg Tori Amos covers of "I'm on Fire," "Purple Rain," and "For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her." These were fun to listen to a few times, but not worth preserving in CD format. If anything, they confirmed what I already suspected: Tori peaked with Little Earthquakes.
Then there are the obscure songs, usually by one-hit-wonder acts like Asia ("Heat of the Moment"), Night Ranger ("Sister Christian") and Grandmaster Flash ("White Lines"). Look, Matthew Wilder's "Break My Stride" is one of my favorite songs from the 80s, but I don't see myself purchasing his Bouncin' Off the Walls album, even if I win the Powerball.
But I would buy Shine On, the comprehensive Pink Floyd box set. I'd put on my lava lamp and hip to the psychedelic groove of "Echoes" and "A Saucerful of Secrets" and "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun." Until I make the $200 investment, however, I'm happy to have their arcane early hit "See Emily Play" on my hard drive. (This rare track, incidentally, is the one that's most frequently uploaded from my computer).
I also captured some tunes by Harry Nilson ("Everybody's Talkin'") and Dan Fogelberg ("Leader of the Band"). I probably shouldn't admit this about the latter, but I like them enough that I may just buy their respective Greatest Hits albums. If I do, Napster should get credit for a referral.
So I don't think Napster should be illegal. I don't think they should charge money. I think the record companies should diversify their offerings and pull the plug on Just Push Play (yet another Aerosmith release) and other corporate rock acts. And I think artists should be savvy enough to understand why people download songs: because they love the music. These are not poor people who don't buy albums. These are computer-savvy upper-middle-class audiophiles with DSL connections and disposable income. Give them what they want and they will buy it.
It is appropriate that Metallica was among the first to sue Napster. Here is a band that has maybe 12 good songs, spread across almost as many albums. To enjoy the sublime ballad "Fade to Black," probably their best song, you have to purchase the entire Ride the Lighting album. For aural pleasure, I'd sooner listen to Michael Bolton's Soul Provider. Why plop down $18 for one good song and 10 tracks of drivel?
Napster made it possible to download "Fade to Black," "One," "The Last Caress," "Breadfan," "Enter Sandman," "Unforgiven," "Master of Puppets," "Sad But True," and "Nothing Else Matters," and burn those quality tracks to a single eardrum-bleeding CD. This is a radical concept I'm introducing, but maybe instead of suing Napster, Lars, Kirk, James, and Jason should, like, release a Greatest Hits album.
Probably they think that it's beneath them, that distilling 12 albums of power chords and feedback to one quintessential masterpiece is too Steve Miller. But Mother Lode: The Best of Metallica is the sort of thing that would never stray from the Billboard Top 500, never ever. Twenty-five years from now, it would still be #476, just above Dark Side of the Moon. Metallica feels Napster is a threat to its revenue. It's not; it's a clarion call to give the people what they want.
Still, Napster is not all peaches and cream. There is a certain bathos to having so many songs at your disposal. Where is the thrill in hearing a forgotten favorite on the radio, when you can get it whenever you want? As the Gilbert & Sullivan song goes (and if you don't know it, you can Napster it), "If everybody's somebody, then no one's anybody."
The first song I downloaded was Led Zeppelin's "Hey Hey What Can I Do?" Until the release of the fabled Zep box set in 1993, this track was available only as a B-side 45. It was, in record store parlance, a rarity. Every blue moon a classic rock station would play it and people would go nuts, because you could only hear on the radio. Hip high school bands covered it. Kids who listened to cooler music than you did revered it.
The song that was such a find ten years ago I listened to some 20 times this week. Anyone with Napster and a decent modem can do the same thing. I still love it, but the novelty has worn off. The magic I experienced hearing it on the radio, or listening to a static-y tape of it a friend made me, is gone. Napster ruined it for me.
While in school I was something of a DJ. My parties always involved hordes of people dancing to 80s music (this was before such things were hackneyed, you understand; when it was still taboo to own Duran Duran's Decade compilation). My friends and I went to great lengths to seek out rare 80s tracks, stuff we hadn't heard in ten years: "Too Shy" by Kagagoogoo and "I Can Dream About You" by Dan Hartman, that sort of thing.
It took me six months to track down Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax." The record company that distributed the album went belly-up, I was told; the recording simply did not exist in CD format. I bought a CD single, an import, in a shop on St. Mark's Place for $14. That CD, with its seven different mixes of "Relax," was the piece de resistance in our expansive 80s collection. Now, thanks to Napster, it's just another piece of plastic.
Shakespeare reminds us that they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve for nothing (They are also sick that surf it with too much, but you get the idea). How does Napster change the way I appreciate music? As Led Zeppelin might say, the songs don't remain the same.
By Greg Olear
041001