Did MP3s stop us from caring about lyrics?
In: Music
24 Jun 2009
I was listening to the new Dream Theater album today, downloaded via ZunePass and is phenomenal by the way, and I had a thought. I really miss CD jackets. I miss being able to read the lyrics. I also hate having to try and read them from the myriad of spam and malware filled lyric sites on the internet.
So I am just wondering, why is there no quality, safe place to get lyrics for the albums we are buying?
I want my stinking lyrics back. Why don’t we insist that the lyrics are packaged in the MP3 meta data, and that the players provide the UI to view them on the device. Seems pretty simple and obvious to me, duh.
Petition anyone?
- Tags: lyrics
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Jason Burns is a technology enthusiast, Microsoft guy, photographer, musician and all around geek. This blog is the general rambling one, check out the links for the specific ones!
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10 Responses to Did MP3s stop us from caring about lyrics?
Color Printing
June 24th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Honestly, I never stopped caring about the lyrics. For me, the most important part of a song is still the words. That’s why I hate singers who only do revivals and those who can’t write their own songs (or at least help on writing it). They don’t deserve to be called artists. (That’s just my opinion, BTW.)
And I do miss CD covers! Those were the days huh…
Robby
June 24th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
It’s not that I don’t care about lyrics. It’s just that I can google it if I can’t figure out what they’re singing.
Anthony
June 25th, 2009 at 1:33 am
Why don’t you store the lyrics in the MP3 itself. I have seen it done, just did a quick search online and found this: http://www.hiker.org.il/lyrics.htm
Keep blogging.
Anthony
Dom Barnes
June 25th, 2009 at 4:09 am
I still care about lyrics, and I do miss the CD jackets you get. Thats why I like that iTunes sometimes included Digital Booklets, basically a PDF of the paper booklet you’d get in the case.
As for lyrics, GimmeSomeTunes is an iTunes plugin which fetches lyrics and puts them on the metadata for the song so it all syncs over to my iPhone. Not a bad system, but I’d like to see all albums include that as a PDF, since it probably starts life as one anyway.
Matt Jones
June 25th, 2009 at 5:47 am
I completely agree and have had this complaint for sometime now. There is a lyric area in the TAG, so just use it. I can understand not having it in Billy-Bob’s MP3 Power Ballad torrent file you downloaded last week because it had that one elusive version of Meatloaf’s “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” with the extended 5 minute solo.
But when i buy a complete CD from either iTunes, the Zune store or Amazon. I expect it to be properly packaged and filled with the same “content” i would get if i bought the physical CD.
Jason Burns
June 25th, 2009 at 9:07 am
The point is having access to it without having to go look it up. I can look it up too if I am in front of a computer, what if I am sitting on the bus or on an exercise bike?
Jason Burns
June 25th, 2009 at 9:09 am
That was exactly my suggestion, except that the companies selling the MP3s provide them and the people making the players make it easy to read them.
Norm
June 30th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Really, with all thats going on in the world, your going to spend effort complaining about this? If you want to know the lyrics to a song, *listen* to the song. If you cant decipher them, google it! Chill out, man.
“The point is having access to it without having to go look it up. I can look it up too if I am in front of a computer, what if I am sitting on the bus or on an exercise bike?”
You just can’t wait and look it up the lyrics later? Are you the most impatient person on earth? Relax!
I still agree, the companies might as well include lyrics in the tags. Makes sense. But is it really worth the effort of starting a petition? Do you think they will even read your petition? This is Microsoft afterall. Don’t expect them to go out of their way to help customers. If they cared about customers, they wouldn’t infect their music with DRM in the first place. If they cared about their customers, they wouldn’t have made windows vista.
Jason Burns
June 30th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Wow, let me try and get through this one and still be nice. (the urge to say F*ck off and don’t read my blog anymore is hard to resist)
- The petition line was a joke. I am not that mad, nor do I care to waste time on something like that.
- Two, I am a musician, I like to remake and play with a lot of these songs, so a lot of times I am trying to sing along to new songs. Lyrics help.
- Third, what the hell does Microsoft have to do with it? I actually WORK for Microsoft, and we do care about our customers, my job is working with customers to make sure our products are solving the problems they have. The lyrics are owned by the labels, and the music is distributed by the labels, Microsoft would surely pass along the lyrics if they had a vehicle to get them.
Vista = bad is marketing hype, until Windows 7 I used it all the time with no issues, post SP1 it is rock solid. I use Macs and Linux too, I am not a one trick pony, it’s an honest assessment.
Jerry @ vintage wedding dress
August 27th, 2009 at 10:10 am
I believe that I cannot enjoy any song without understanding the lyrics… So, lyrics is the most important part of a song at least for me. But we can store lyrics in the MP3 itself. Just try it…. Thanks.