response 25 of 65:

Aug 3 00:47 UTC 2000

I regret I'm such a poor explainer of things....
 
"If MP3 compression is so good, then why aren't CDs being issued that 
 way?"   Because the CD standard ("Red Book Standard," I think it's called)
 was defined in 1980 and the MP3 format did not exist then.  Many people 
 put lots of MP3 files onto recordable CDs -- I believe you can pack about 
 100 pop songs onto such a CD -- but such homemade CDs cannot be played 
 back in "standard" audio CD players, only in computers which are programmed
 to decode the MP3 format from the CD drive.

    (Commercial CDs all have to stick to that 1980 standard if they are to 
    be played on the millions of CD players which only know that standard.
    Getting beyond this standard is a fascinating market problem; there 
    are currently two new digital audio disk standards, DVD-Audio and 
    SACD, trying to tackle this topic.)
 
"Why is the term "lower fidelity" still constantly being used to 
 describe it?"  Because MP3s probably are lower fidelity than CDs.
 The questions then become: (1) how much lower is the fidelity?
 (2) How many people notice enough to care?  (3) How many people are 
 willing to accept the lower fidelity to get free music?
 Does MP3 sound better than a commercially recorded audio cassette?
 My gut feeling is yes, and yet those audio cassettes sold by the 
 millions until recently.
 
 20 million Napster users seem willing to accept the limitations of the 
 MP3 format, either to preview music they may want to buy later on CD, or 
 get the tunes for free.  I can understand this, since I'm downloading 
 lots of Real Audio stuff which is probably worse-sounding than MP3.
 
"Why did it take so long to develop?  File compression is a pretty old 
 art form by computer standards."   What's old is perfect compression, 
 where the file recovered after compression/uncompression is bit-for-bit 
 the same file.  I'd argue this is engineering and not an art.
 
 Lossy compression does become an art; one is making guesses about what 
 the listener (or viewer) won't miss if the compression process throws 
 it away.  Lossy compression is useless for storing computer data 
 for archive purposes -- software backups, or tax files, say -- 
 so it's only become useful as a tool as computers have become
 entertainment devices rather than calculating machines.  That's why 
 MP3 was late to develop.

response 27 of 65:

Aug 3 03:39 UTC 2000

In reality, all digitized music is "comperessed" from the standpoint that not
all of the original music (every iota) is represented. As analog gets
converted to binary, something is lost (or the representation becomes SO large
it's utterly unwieldly). 

Think of a circle drawn on a computer screen. As computers have evolved, the
circle has looked more and more accurate... now, with a modern monitor and
a high resolution, it's fairly difficult for the human eye to see that it's
not a perfect circle... but it isn't. It's impossible for a "perfect" circle
to be drawn on a pixelated screen.

What's improved over time is the art of maximizing resolution while minimizing
memory taken.

As to the commercial MP3 issue, wouldn't it make more sense to popularize MP3
*players* first? it's not that difficult to make a CD player that plays both
formats, after all, and it wouldn't have to be the case that the old CDs get
phased out. Also, CDs that don't take up the whole disc could have both sorts
of files on them... a CD that takes up only, say, 85% of the CD would have
room for MP3 duplicates, shouldn't it? (And 85% of a 74 minute CD is, what,
64 minutes? Still longer than the standard CD.)

One reason for NOT wanting that technology to become standard:  When I was
a kid, artists were expected to churn out about 30 minutes of music a year...
by the time I was a young adult, that had become 45 minutes, and now it's
around an hour. An MP3-compatible CD holds about 10 hours, 11 hours of
music... great for classical music buffs (all those long operas), but what
about pop music? What sort of crap would be on as filler if pop stars were
expected to fill 3 hours a year?

response 29 of 65:

Aug 3 13:22 UTC 2000

It never seems to work that way, though... DVDs hold more than tapes, so we
MUST put more on them... CDs hold more than LPs, so we MUST put more on
them... Stephen King MUST BE a better writer than Dave Barry, his books are
so much longer... Gotta get our money's worth, after all.

response 31 of 65:

Aug 3 17:45 UTC 2000

  re #27:  component players which understand MP3 as well as the "Red Book"
  CD audio format have been on the market for more than a year now, though
  it's still not a common feature on models from the major manufacturers.
  Recently I've started seeing the first portable (discman sized) units that
  will play MP3s from CD-ROMs/CD-Rs

response 33 of 65:

Aug 3 21:11 UTC 2000

The big problem with CD singles was that not all players could play them. 
That and that they didn't really try very hard to promote singles, so not a
huge amount of production and therefore higher per-unit prices.

response 35 of 65:

Aug 4 22:19 UTC 2000

Small CD-singles (CD3 format, the 3" little discs) are pretty much 
extinct in the US.  I did see one at Borders a while back, though, 
can't remember the artist.  However, 5" (standard physical size) 
CD singles seem to be alive and well, there is a whole wall of them 
at Tower Records in East Lansing.  
 
I don't know why make-it-yourself CDs aren't catching on either: 
probably it has to do with the limited number of songs available
to such services.

response 37 of 65:

Aug 4 22:28 UTC 2000

        Dave Clark Five's Greatest Hits LP would fit entirely on a 
CD3--they hold about 20 minutes.

response 39 of 65:

Aug 25 21:56 UTC 2000

re #1: (it *is* short, but the end sounds familiar.  do you have
        anything longer, or is that the gist of the song?)

response 41 of 65:

Oct 25 04:17 UTC 2000

RE#27 -- In the first paragraph you're totally wrong.  There is nothing
inherantly 'lossy' about A/D conversion.  The theory to explain this has been
around since the 1920's.  

response 43 of 65:

Jan 26 16:47 UTC 2001

Radiohead is one of those bands who don't have a What They Usually Sound Like.
But I wouldn't be surprised if that were one of their.....songs. <ducks>

response 45 of 65:

Jan 27 18:37 UTC 2001

#42> I would presume the song you describe would be Rollins Band's "Liar."
A fairly seminal agrorock theme; apparently you're not fond of that. Rollins
Band doesn't sound a bit like Radiohead.

Radiohead moans more than it screams, and the closest track that leaps to mind
is "Creep," which does have a very traditional stanza-chorus-stanza
architecture ("Cause I'm a creep / Yeah, I'm a loser / What that Hell am I
doing here? / I don't belong here").

I'm also not used to Radiohead having heavy bass, except heavily
synthesized... but then, that's what Kid A is (heavily synthesized).

response 47 of 65:

Jan 27 23:23 UTC 2001

((I bought Radiohead's OK COMPUTER after it was highly praised by a 
  number of people in last year's favorite album poll here on Grex.
   It eventually got given away to much younger Grexers.))

response 49 of 65:

Jan 28 23:14 UTC 2001

"Pablo Honey" (which has "Creep") is preferable to "Kid A", IMHO. Radiohead
has gotten inaccessible, and too often critics confuse "inaccessible" and
"artistic."