Kinda neat.
I doubt any of the bands I like would be available, but still a cool idea.

umm, no, not cool. this is the recording industry crying poverty and pulling out any way possible to get you to buy their music instead of "stealing" it online or "illegally sharing" it.

Personally, I like being able to browse through my local mom&pop disc shop and buy a physical cd, with liner notes, etc. I like listening to a new disc and reading the notes/lyrics while it plays and I don't like the notion of having to read the liner notes/lyrics in a pdf file on my computer while it plays.

Of course, I do take these cds and rip them right onto my hard drive and into iTunes afterward; and I do occasionally buy an album through iTunes or Napster.

What the record companies don't realize is that 20 years ago a kid could go buy an album on his allowance or from lawn mowing money or from his part-time after school JOB and 8-10 bucks a week wasn't that bad. Now they want $15-20 a cd; but kids don't get jobs anymore (hence you seeing that illegal immigrant washing dishes or taking your order at a restaurant or bagging your groceries, etc) and mommy and daddy can't just buy them a cd or two a week, so the ones they get they share with their friends and peers or through online music sharing sites.

If I can go online to YourMusic.com and buy a full cd, with free shipping, for $6.99 (yourmusic is run by bmg) it says to me that when fye is charging $20.99 for the same album (and people out there actually buy from them for some reason) and not too many people know about YM, then OF COURSE they're going to "steal music" online. duh.

And for the record, my local mom&pop is cheaper than fye, competitive with best buy/wal mart/target/etc. and carries a much, much better selection.

So no, these usb drives with preloaded music, or the new 'cards' they have that you have to scratch off the pin number on to download your album (that's a genius idea-- instead of buying someone the actual cd as a gift, now you can buy a 'gift card' looking thing, and then THEY have to go and download the album themself. Hope people getting these have hi-speed internet connections).

So you'll get a couple of "exclusives," but honestly, do you really want to hear the crappy 'demo version' of a song some artist recorded on a radio shack tape recorder in their basement before they got famous? Or the version of a song that has the verses in a different order than the final product? Whatever.

It's probably best not to get R. Kelly's USB drive.

Great. More landfill fodder.

If they'd only invent some way of distributing data without the production, stocking, and shipping overhead of physical media...

Sounds neat. I wonder if there will ever be, like, walkmans or something that play the USB drives if they ever catch on. Because let's face it: Not everyone owns and iPod, and not everybody wants one either.

this is farking retarded.

it;s a hell of a lot cheaper to just use a DVD since you can basically use the same packaging as the album AND they hold more than most usb drives!

My dvd player takes USB drives, plays music and video,rips from cd to mp3 on the fly(I have not used that function yet) USB = no moving parts to wear out .I use the Usb more than discs now. by taking a playlist from my PC i can play the music on the home stereo.

"USB is going to be the future," Lippman said - from a time warp in 1999.

NIN?

this is pretty old news. NIN got some credit for doing it a while back but Aphex Twin did it before them.

Its creative marketing for the digital age though I'll give them that.

I HATE it when bands mix and match tracks between releases. The Mars Volta is the latest for this. I'd be more than happy to pay whatever the hell they want for that USB album with bonus material, EXCEPT there's all sorts of other outtakes and bonus tracks spread out over other editions, singles, vinyl, etc. To get it all, I'd probably be paying upwards of a hundred bucks for at least half a dozen discs. This makes me MAD. It's silly, greedy, and comes off as a big "fark you" to anyone more than a casual fan.

In other words, give me a choice: standard fifty-minute album for fifteen bucks, or every released track from the sessions, for which I'd gladly shell out thirty to forty.

I bought the Best Buy version anyway. The bonus tracks are WMA files with DRM that makes it incompatible with my Mac, and the bonus DVD doesn't even work in any player I've tried. What the hell.

I think this is a cool idea, but it definatly isn't for everyone. Like the article said, it really is more for the hardcore fan that wants everything an artist releases. I bought the Mars Volta drive just because of the bonus material throughout the year, would i prefer it if i could just buy the cd and then have everything they released over the year on a second cd or through a password on the website or something? of course, but it's still a cool little thing to have. I'm still going to get the vinyl version so I can listen to it on my home theatre, but for digital purposes, it's great if you want to spend a few extra bucks and get a few b-sides every now and then.

musicky: I HATE it when bands mix and match tracks between releases. The Mars Volta is the latest for this. I'd be more than happy to pay whatever the hell they want for that USB album with bonus material, EXCEPT there's all sorts of other outtakes and bonus tracks spread out over other editions, singles, vinyl, etc. To get it all, I'd probably be paying upwards of a hundred bucks for at least half a dozen discs. This makes me MAD. It's silly, greedy, and comes off as a big "fark you" to anyone more than a casual fan.

The Smashing Pumpkins did that too. Different bonus track depending on if you bought it at Best Buy, Target, iTunes, Amazon, etc. So no one could get all the tracks unless they downloaded them illegally, or shelled out $70 for the same CD over and over.

when matchbox 20 did theirs, i can't remember my record store selling a single one.

of course, that also may be because it was matchbox 20.

sorry labels, this ain't gonna help you none.

MikeXpop: musicky: I HATE it when bands mix and match tracks between releases. The Mars Volta is the latest for this. I'd be more than happy to pay whatever the hell they want for that USB album with bonus material, EXCEPT there's all sorts of other outtakes and bonus tracks spread out over other editions, singles, vinyl, etc. To get it all, I'd probably be paying upwards of a hundred bucks for at least half a dozen discs. This makes me MAD. It's silly, greedy, and comes off as a big "fark you" to anyone more than a casual fan.

The Smashing Pumpkins did that too. Different bonus track depending on if you bought it at Best Buy, Target, iTunes, Amazon, etc. So no one could get all the tracks unless they downloaded them illegally, or shelled out $70 for the same CD over and over.

It's the retailers that ask for this, not the bands. Think yourself lucky you could get the bonus tracks at all - the international version didn't have any at all.

First band I ever saw do this was Barenaked Ladies, with their holiday album. I thought it was a neat idea. You could pull the files off directly onto your computer without having to rip a CD, then use the drive for storage.

I'd definitely buy an album in this format, provided it had all of the liner notes and everything, and it was priced fairly. Very convenient distribution method. However, I'm with everyone else. Save all of the b-sides, bonus tracks and outtakes, and release them all at once. Don't penalize your fans for being fans by breaking them up. That just pisses people off, and gives them MORE incentive to download.

CDs are through. I've been telling people this since last year, and they said CDs haven't reached their potential, yet. The future of Flashdrives will be ones with male/female USB connectors , one at each end, and allow someone to directly copy the contents of one into another. The Army has been doing this sort of thing for twenty years.

MikeXpop: The Smashing Pumpkins did that too. Different bonus track depending on if you bought it at Best Buy, Target, iTunes, Amazon, etc. So no one could get all the tracks unless they downloaded them illegally, or shelled out $70 for the same CD over and over.

I don't think "Zeitgeist" was worth even buying once.