Very Sad!!!!
On 9/2/04 7:56 PM, "Mrs C" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > February 9, 2004 > Downloaders Can Get Nothing for Something From Apple > By DAVID F. GALLAGHER > > he top-of-the-line iPod music player from Apple Computer can hold four solid > weeks of music. But what if you just want a little peace and quiet? As it > turns out, Apple sells that too - sounds of silence for 99 cents. > > Steve Halberstadt of Raleigh, N.C., made such a purchase last week after > discovering that Apple's iTunes store, the Web's leading downloadable music > outlet, had added "The Whitey Album," a 1995 release by Ciccone Youth, a > jokey side project of the rock band Sonic Youth. The album's second track > album, "Silence," consists of 63 seconds of exactly that. (The band has > said, with tongue in cheek, that the track is a version of John Cage's > famous silent composition "4'33"," only speeded up.) > > After checking out the 30-second preview, which "seemed to be very > representative of the rest of the song," Mr. Halberstadt said he could not > help but make the purchase. > > He described it as "the best 99 cents I've ever spent'' in an e-mail message > last week to Jack Miller, the editor in chief of the news and gossip Web > site As the Apple Turns (www.appleturns.com). > > Mr. Miller mentioned the silent track on his site, and soon readers were > submitting others they had dug up among the more than 500,000 selections in > the iTunes store. > > Most of the tracks were clearly meant to be breathers between songs, not > silence for silence's sake, but in the automated process of chopping albums > into files they had been given their own price tags. > > Several were from an album by the hip-hop group Slum Village, and like all > of the album's tracks, they bore an "explicit" label indicating profanity - > or in these cases, explicit silence. > > Using the readers' suggestions, Mr. Miller compiled a playlist of "nine > tracks of professionally encoded silence, a total of 6 minutes and 44 > seconds of the yawning void," downloadable from iTunes for just $8.91. He > noted that as with all iTunes purchases, antipiracy measures allow the > silence to be enjoyed on no more than three computers. > > Late in the week, Apple made it impossible to buy the Ciccone Youth silent > track by itself. An Apple spokeswoman, Natalie Sequeira, said such decisions > were up to the artists, and "in this case they recently told us that they > wanted it to be available only as part of the album." DAVID F. GALLAGHER > > Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | > Corrections | Help | Back to Top >
