the band supports the recording and ***free*** exchange of their live performances. like i've said numerous times, the business end of this isn't the offensive aspect.

Yeah, I don't see anything wrong with it. I was simply following the logic. It's like we're all arguing semantics. "Well, it's ok that some of their music is shared online, and that only a small amount of fans have access to some of their music, but there's other music that's sacred. No one can touch that."

That's why albums are "Mastered" the mastering job is to try to take away the factor or eliminate the inherent eq differences in playback equipment, whether you listen to the cd on some shitty portable player w/ pc speakers or a top of the line multiphonic stereo system.

Maybe this should go without explaining...and maybe you don't mean this but as far as Live Recordings vs. Studio Official Recordings... there is quite a difference eventhough the songs are played are generally the same. Simply put, Official Studio recordings are the closest to being "sacred" they are what they are, meant to be purchased by the public/fans for enjoyment and to profit the artists. Live shows really don't have the same intent, they are performances of a particular moment in time at a particular place. so the band taking that stance has an open policy about sharing/distribution (w/o profit, obviously) of such recordings.

So there's no difference between listening to the album on $3,000 worth of audio equipment and a shitty $5 cd player with crappy headphones and blown speakers?

there'll be bootlegs of the shows next week online next week, most likely. the band will probably be excited to hear the recordings and won't care that they're online.

sharing audience recordings of a live show is entirely different than sharing poor quality rips of an unreleased album with neither the context of a performance or the context of a release aesthetic. i'm perplexed as to why this is all so dumbfounding for some of you.

it's true. they could have gone the radiohead route with promo. i have no idea what route they went with promo though as i've yet to see a promo cd, a burn from the band, a reference master or anything for this record. i have no idea where the leaked recordings came from, but i can't assume that they came from a promo cd since i've not yet seen one.

i was assuming that promos were the culprit to the "leak"
but without that fact this becomes abit more interesting...

Yeah, exactly. Studio albums, and any official releases really(live or studio) are put together so they can be easily produced, duplicated, and sold. So this is all about profit then?

In that case, let's face it. Since Sonic Youth "own" the music, they should be able to control, package, and sell the bootlegs as they see fit.

It's ridiculous to posit the notion that Sonic Youth even would want to "control every single aspect" of one's listening conditions. That's not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is the quality of the actual media. I perhaps used the wrong word when I said "fidelity." What I meant was the quality of the medium -- and I don't think it's too crazy for an artist to want to be able to control that sort of thing. Mp3s are inescapably the medium of choice these days, but from what I understand, Rather Ripped is going around at 96kbps or 128kbps? There's no way that's a quality representation of the music.

Years ago, an artist wouldn't have to worry about this sort of thing. I guess that's just a symptom of the age in which we live -- we're all so willing to accept degraded quality as long as our immediate concerns are addressed. Luckily, digital compression is getting better and better, so the quality degradation is decreasing, but I seriously doubt that a 128kbps mp3 rip of anything sounds that good. And so the art suffers, whether its being played on a tinny boombox or a Dolby 7.1 Stereo Surround System. So after six months of recording, mixing, sequencing, and mastering, the currently-most-heard version of Rather Ripped is the quality-degraded version.

well obviously there is a difference, but the way i understand it is that they attempt to try to eliminate the obvious differences as best as possible by replaying the album on several systems and deal with the EQ that way. i dunno i could be wrong, and i'm sure it is a more involved process.

I don't see why. Other than the fact that we've just been shaped by the business part of the music industry. Again, I also don't see why the sound quality should play any factor. Sorry.

I guess y'all are just morally superior.

profit is a factor but is it everything, no... i'm getting quite tired of going into the semantic direction of this thread so as i was about to do, i'm about to rightfully "let this one rest" blah blah blah...

I thought the issue at hand was comprimising the artist's intentions. And my point was the artist has little control over how we hear the music. So in their view, we may not be "seeing the whole picture", so to speak. But, you know, that's just something they have to except. Different people are going to hear the music in different ways. So controlling the media as you say only gets you so far.

we're perhaps just more patient; more intellectually equiped to parse and respect the decisions of others; less needy of a position at the tip of the entertainment bandwagon and less prone to the ever-infecting virus of internet data-jock-itis.

That's ok, you don't have to apologize. If you -- like the majority of us -- don't mind listening to degraded quality, it all makes perfect sense. We've been conditioned by the media available. Mp3s are acceptable to most, so we don't mind it because that's what we're used to.

But some of us do care about the sound quality. And some of us care about a myriad of other aspects concerning record leakage.


I think we all just care about different things, is all.

Sounds good. I don't think anyone is changing anyone's opinions.

I just found the whole bit about using the issue of downloading music as some sort of moral indictment against people to be amusing.

info-jocks are still jocks!

Right, and the quality of the media is part of the artist's intentions.


Yeah, I agree that they'll have to accept this. Like I keep saying, it's the time we live in. Quality-degraded leakage is unstoppable. But I'm sure in the future, artists will be able to figure out a way to utilize low-quality record leakage to their full artistic advantage. But we're not quite there yet, I suppose.

Yes! You SHOULD show some respect and allow them to call the shots.

They don't mind bootlegs, so they don't express an opposition to them.

They DO mind the downloading of the album before its release, so they say so!

I feel compelled to repeat my earlier post:

SY DOES NOT WANT YOU TO DOWNLOAD THE ALBUM

*Insert: THEY SAID SO

THEY MADE IT, NOT YOU

SO DON'T FUCKING DOWNLOAD IT

YOU IGNORANT DUMBASSES

Am I posting in English? I must not be, because that is the only logical explanation for why these concepts are so difficult to understand.

It isn't about what YOU want. It isn't about your 'rights' as a fan, because frankly, you haven't got any.

Just wait for the goddamned album! CHRIST!


I didn't know SY had hired on an official spokesperson from the forum, congratulations!

*Edit: Bah I fucked up the quote

Is anyone else getting a facial tic?