Mojo Filter vs. Yahoo! Music Unlimited, November, 2005 to January, 2006

Posted by iancr, February 20, 2006 at 5:42 pm, in Yahoo! Music Unlimited. 18 Comments

The UK’s Mojo is my favorite music magazine. In fact, it’s the only one I read these days. In Mojo you’re just as likely to read a story about a single MC5 show thirty years ago as you are an interview with Antony from The Johnsons (who won the Mercury Prize as well as Mojo’s album of the year in 2005). It’s the only major magazine I know of that feels 100% free of music PR agent input. For music nerds by music nerds.

Every month Mojo Magazine features a large section known as “The Mojo Filter”, forty to fifty pages of music reviews. It reviews new music first, reissues second, followed by books, DVDs, and live shows. Essentially, it’s an attempt to monthly collect the albums any “popular” music fanatic might be interested in checking out. It’s usually things that are new and great, or anticipated for some other reason. They cross all popular music genres, from Rock and Americana, to Hip Hop and Jazz, to Folk and Underground.

As you probably already know, Yahoo! Music Unlimited is Yahoo!’s $5/month music subscription service. All-you-can-eat music, low monthly price. Yahoo! Music Unlimited contains more than 1.5 million tracks from labels large and small.

But Yahoo! Music Unlimited does not have all the music in the world. Some music isn’t there because the artists are intentionally keeping it out, not releasing their music digitally until someone writes them a big check; The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Bob Seger (yes, Bob Seger) are holding out for major loot before they license their music to services like ours. Some have exclusively licensed their music elsewhere; AC/DC is exclusively at MSN right now, the pre-Sticky Fingers Rolling Stones catalog is only available at iTunes at the moment. Most of the music we don’t have, however, just hasn’t been licensed yet; whomever controls the licensing hasn’t yet done a deal with Yahoo! or MusicNet (our provider) to put the music in our service. For example, I just spoke with Ian MacKaye (whose music and idealism changed my life at 15) of Dischord Records and he was explaining that they aren’t really set up to deal with digital distribution in a big way just yet — sorting out the right model for their artists isn’t always immediately obvious or logistically easy for a small label like them to pull off.

We work with a company called MusicNet to license the music for our service and they work tirelessly every day to get all recorded music into our catalog. And I am constantly sending them emails asking why we still don’t have Merge, Touch and Go, etc. They’re trying, they tell me. It’s a struggle, though. Warp, for example, decided they didn’t want to be a part of a $5/month subscription service (too cheap, they believe), so they pulled their music and made their songs download-only (too bad, because the Jamie Lidell record was my favorite of last year).

Because Yahoo! Music Unlimited has a lot of music, but clearly doesn’t have everything, it’s easy for one person to say “Oh my God! They have everything!” and another (an electronic music fan, for example) to say, “Man, they don’t have shit!” So in an effort to see where some of our holes are, I’ve been comparing The Mojo Filter to the Yahoo! Music Unlimted catalog since Yahoo! Music Unlimited was released to the public last May. Because Mojo is a UK Magazine and Yahoo! Music Unlimited is (so far) a US service, the comparison isn’t 100% fair, but it’s still fun to see what we have, what we’re lacking, and end up with a great playlist of new music to share at the end of each month. Check out the past issues and playlists:

• October, 2005
• September, 2005
• August, 2005
• July, 2005
• June, 2005
• May, 2005

I’ve decided to move this monthly exercise to YMusicBlog to give some visibility into what we have and don’t have, let people know that we care and take depth of catalog very seriously, and invite some ongoing discussion on the topic. In this post I’ll cover three months of Mojo (catching up), but going forward I’ll try to make this a monthly feature of YMusicBlog.

Mojo Filter, November, 2005

The following music is available in Yahoo! Music Unlimited, and you can listen to a nice big playlist of it simply by clicking here:

Franz Ferdinand – You Could Have It So Much Better…
Cream – Royal Albert Hall London May 2-3-5-6-2005
Gang of Four – Return the Gift
Wolf Parade – Apologies to the Queen Mary
Neil Young – Prarie Wind
Brad Meldhau – Day Is Done
Carleen Anderson – Soul Providence
Simply Red – Simplified
The Go! Team – Thunder, Lightning, Strike
Rev Run – Distortion
Cage – Hell’s Winter
Barbra Streisand – Guilty Pleasures
Paul Weller – As Is Now
John Cale – Black Acetate
Blondie – Live By Request
Soulfly – Dark Ages
Starsailor – On The Outside
Depeche Mode – Playing The Angel
Boards of Canada – The Campfire Headphase
Dirty Three – Cinder
Jim White – Music From Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus
We Are Scientists – History Repeats
Animal Collective – Feels
Francoiz Breut – Une Saison Volee
Herbie Hancock – Possibilities
Mark Eitzel – Candy Ass
Grandaddy – Excerpts From the Diary of Todd Zill
Louis XIV – The Best Little Secrets Are Kept
Robbie Williams – Intensive Care

And here are the ones not found in Yahoo! Music Unlimited, along with what label they’re on, and which other sites Yahoo! Audio Search tells us have them (if any):

Ian Anderson – Ian Anderson Plays The Orchestral Jethro Tull (Zyx)
Phil Manzanera – 50 Minutes Later (Hannibal)
Texas – Red Book (Mercury)
In The Country – This Was The Pace Of My Heartbeat (Rune Grammofone; iTunes)
Baby J – Presents FTP (All City Music)
Prince Paul – Hip Hop Gold Dust (Antidote)
Lushlife – West Sounds (www.kanyewestsounds.com)
Ms. Dynamite – Judgement Days (Polydor)
Silver Jews – Tanglewood Numbers (Drag City; iTunes)
Various – New Sounds of the Old West Vol. 4 (Loose)
The Fiery Furnaces – Rehearsing My Choir (Rough Trade; iTunes, MusicMatch, Rhapsody)
Sugababes – Taller In More Ways (Universal)
The Fall – Fall Heads Roll (Slogan/Sanctuary; AudioLunchbox)
Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3 – …tick …tick …tick (Blue Rose)
The Paddingtons – The Paddingtons (Poptones/Mercury)
Steven R. Smith – Crown of Marches (Catsup Plate)
OOIOO – Green and Gold (Thrill Jockey; iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic)
Dion – Bronx In Blue (Orchard Enterprises)
Various – Dream Brother (Full Time Hobby; Wippit)
Vashti Bunyan – Lookaftering (Fatcat; iTunes, eMusic, Wippit)
John Tams – The Reckoning (Topic)
James Raynard – Strange Histories (Unearthed)
The Witches of Elswick – Hell’s Belles (Selwyn Music)
Andrew Murray – Hell or High Water (White Cow)
Jim Causely – Fruits of the Earth (Wild Goose)
The Cardigans – Super Extra Gravity (Stockholm)
Arab Strap – The Last Romance (Chemical Underground)
Pure Reason Revolution – Cautionary Tales for the Brave (Sony/BMG)
Shelly Poole – Hard Time for the Dreamer (Transistor Project; iTunes)
The Corrs – Home (Atlantic)

So lets do some math:

Total albums: 60
Haves: 29 (48%)
Don’t haves: 31 (52%)
Of the Don’t haves, how many iTunes has: 6
Assuming iTunes has all of our haves (note that I’m not running that test), how many iTunes has: 35 (58%)

So there you go. A few interesting points:

• iTunes does very well on the larger indies (Rough Trade, Drag City, etc). Why is that? I think it’s three things: a) iTunes is by far the biggest, and bands *want* to be in iTunes. Multiple indie labels have said that their bands kept asking them when they were going to be in iTunes, so they actively sought a deal with iTunes — labels are coming to iTunes, in our case we’re going to the labels for the most part; b) iTunes did a brilliant thing with the indies early on — they invited them all to Cupertino, gave them a tour of the Apple campus, lunch, a personal visit from Steve Jobs (The Messiah to many in that audience), and at the end a non-negotiable contract, (paraphrasing) “Here’s the contract. Sign it. Or don’t. Up to you. Don’t have your lawyer call our lawyer. It’s not negotiable. Sign it and you’re in our store. Don’t sign it and you’re not. Pretty straight forward.” I heard this from someone who runs a small label who went for the visit three or so years ago. A very smart, scalable and effective approach, IMHO. c) There are definitely some musically savvy folks at Apple talking to the right labels — not the #1 reason, but I’ll give ‘em some credit (whaddup Chris B and Steve G).
• There’s a lot of music (40%) that *none* of the services have. Note eMusic and AudioLunchbox don’t score much higher than anyone else. Any notion that with some combination of iTunes and eMusic you have all the music that’s fit to hear is bullshit. Yes, we’re using a UK magazine as our test, but this is all music that someone thought was worth writing about in November, yet 40% of it is unavailable in the US through legal channels, period. And in 2006 isn’t this a “global” music market? I’d be curious what percentage you could get through P2P channels — anyone want to run that test? I’m guessing it’s very close to 100%.

So that’s November. As a bonus for reading this far, check out this playlist of the 50 greatest US Punk tracks, based on the Mojo article of the same name. Starts with Louie Louie, ends with Sleater-Kinney, and features the likes of The Seeds, Weirdos, Bad Brains, and The Gun Club in between. Rules. And that’s not all! I also made a playlist from the Reissues section of Mojo this past October and November. Some good stuff in there. Check ‘em. Now on to December…

Following are the albums from Mojo Filter, December, 2005 that you will also find in Yahoo! Music Unlimited (click here for the playlist, more than 30 hours long):

Kate Bush – Ariel
Burt Bacharach – At This Time
Howard Jones – Revolution of the Heart
The Darkness – One Way Ticket To Hell…And Back
Madonna – Confessions On A Dancefloor
Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks – Selected Shorts
Deerhoof – The Runners Four
Mary Timony – Ex Hex
Nickel Creek – Why Should The Fire Die?
Richard Buckner & John Langford – Sir Dark Invader vs. The Fanglord
Richmond Fontaine – The Fitzgerald
Peter Bruntnell – Ghost In A Spitfire
Charlemagne – Detour Allure
Amy Rigby – Little Fugitive
Chris Mills – The Wall To Wall Sessions
Why? – Elephant Eyelash
Stevie Wonder – A Time 2 Love
Damian Marley – Welcome To Jamrock
Wilco – Kicking Television
Alicia Keys – MTV Unplugged
Her Space Holiday – The Past Presents The Future
Brad Paisley – Time Well Wasted
Adrian Belew – Side Two
Carly Simon – Moonlight Serenade
Michael Powers – Onyx Root
Maria Muldaur – Sweet Lovin’ Old Soul
Deep Purple – Rapture Of The Deep
Gravenhurst – Fires In Distant Buildings
Bill Frisell – East West
Bobby Bare – The Moon Was Blue
Rogue Wave – Descended Like Vultures
Killing Joke – XXV Gathering
Ozzy Osbourne – Undercover
Two Gallants – The Throes

And the Have Nots (the albums we do *not* have in Yahoo! Music Unlimited, plus what label they’re on and what services do carry them according to Yahoo! Audio Search):

Test Icicles – For Screening Purposes Only (Domino)
Teddy Thompson – Separate Ways (Verve Forecast)
Sid Griffin – As Certain As Sunrise (Prima; eMusic)
Bobby Earl Smith – Turn Row Blues (Muleshoe)
Half Man Half Biscuit – Achtung Bono (Probe Plus; Rhapsody)
Bell Orchestra – Recording A Tape The Color Of Light (Rough Trade; iTunes)
Tokyo Dragons – Give Me The Fear (Escapi)
Orenda Fink – Invisible Ones (Saddle Creek; iTunes)
Sky Saxon – Transparency (Jungle)
Blockhead – Downtown Science (Ninja Tune; iTunes, Rhapsody)
Lightning Bolt – Hypermagic Mountain (Load; MusicMatch)
Ari Up – Dread More Dan Dead (Collision)
Various – Electric Institute (New Religion/Art)
Richie Hawtin – DE9: Transitions (Novamute)
Pier Bucci – Familia (Crosstown Rebels)
Francisco – Music Business (Nature; iTunes)
Whomadewho – Whomadewho (Gomma; iTunes, eMusic)
Richard Thompson – Grizzly Man OST (Cooking Vinyl; iTunes, BuyMusic.com)
Tiny Tin Lady – The Sound Of Requiem (TTL/Proper)
Various – 1980 Forward (4AD)
Infantjoy – Where The Night Goes (Sony/BMG)
Merz – Loveheart (Gronland; iTunes, Wippit)
Tom Ovans – Honest Abe and The Assassins (Floating World)
Various – Akoustik Anarkhy Present Class aA: Beyond Entertainment (Akoustik Anarkhy)
Bobby Hebb – That’s All I Wanna Know (Tuition)
Big George Brock & The Houserockers – Club Caravan (Cathead)
Duster Bennett – The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions (Columbia/Blue Horizon)
The Mannish Boys – That Represent Man (Delta Groove)
Aidan Smith – Fancy Barrel (Analogue Catalogue)
The Howling Hex – You Can’t Beat Tomorrow (Drag City; iTunes)
David McAlmont – Set One – You Go To My Head (Blue Port)
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel – The Quality of Mercy (Gottidiscs; iTunes)
Emmanuel Jal & Abdel Gadir Salim – Ceasefire (Riverboat; iTunes)
Cheikh Lo – Lamp Fall (World Circuit)
June Tabor – At The Wood’s Heart (Topic)
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis – The Proposition (Mute)
Salif Keita – M’Bemba (Universal Jazz France)
Ozomatli – Live At The Fillmore (Concord; iTunes, Rhapsody, MSN Music, eMusic)
Various – Congotronics 2 (Crammed Discs; Rhapsody, Wippit)
Bananarama – Drama (A&G)
Bonnie “Prince” Billy – Summer In The Southeast (Drag City)
Ralfe Band – Swords (Skint; iTunes, Wippit)
Mari Wilson – Dolled Up (Beehive)
Tracy + The Plastics – Culture for Pigeon (Too Pure; BuyMusic.com)
Abram Wilson – Jazz Warrior (Dune)
David Cross – Closer Than Skin (Noisy)
Sonny Rollins – Without A Song – The 9/11 Concert (Milestone; iTunes, MusicMatch, Rhapsody, eMusic)
Sunn 0))) – Black One (Southern Lord)

Math time again:
Total albums: 82
Haves: 34 (41%)
Have nots: 48 (59%)
Assuming iTunes has all our haves, their haves score: 45 (55%)

Random thoughts:

• iTunes did much better than us this month (14% better as opposed to 10% better last month). It’s those larger indies we’re missing that kill us: Saddle Creek, Ninja Tune, Rough Trade, etc.
• What’s with everyone having Concord except us? That’s a great jazz label, plus they have Ozomatli.
• eMusic doesn’t have Drag City? Weird. What’s up with our Drag City connection? Why do we have all of the old Smog records but none of the Palace or Bonnie “Prince” Billy albums?
• It was a kinda weak month, music-wise. The Deerhoof and Bill Frisell records are AMAZING, but aside from that, nothing terribly outstanding. I like the Richard Buckner record ok. I was disappointed by the new Stevie Wonder, Wilco, Alicia Keys, Damian Marley, and Rogue Wave records. The Two Gallants record was a bit of a surprise. I’ve only listened once through but I think I like it. And the more I listen to this Kate Bush record the more beautiful it sounds.

Now finally (until next month), January 2006:

The Haves (click here for the playlist of these albums, 371 songs, 25 hours of music):

Cat Power – The Greatest
Brian Wilson – What I Really Want For Christmas
Kate and Anna McGarrigle – The McGarrigle Christmas Hour
The Bad Plus – Suspiscous Activity?
The Mars Volta – Scab Dates
Dave Matthews Band – Stand Up
Lina – The Inner Beauty Movement
Marah – If You Didn’t Laugh, You’d Cry
Tommy Lee – Tommyland: The Ride
Fiona Apple – Extraordinary Machine
Billy Bob Thornton – Hobo
Jackie Leven – Elegy for Johnny Cash
Kingsbury Manx – The Fast Rise and Fall of the South
Numbers – We’re Animals
Billy Childish and The Buff Medways – Medway Wheelers
Howard Shore – A History of Violence (Original Score)
Alex Wurman – March of the Penguins (Original Score)
Aerosmith – Rockin’ The Joint
Kevin Coyne with Jon Langford and The Pine Valley Cosmonauts – One Day In Chicago
The Drift – Noumena
Jerry Douglas – Best Kept Secret
John Vanderslice – Pixel Revolt
Lowgold – Keep Music Miserable
Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham – Moments From This Theatre
Reigning Sound – Home For Orphans
Ox – Dust Bowl Revival
Film School – Film School
Decoration – Don’t Disappoint Me Now
Souad Massi – Mesk Elil (Honeysuckle)

The Have Nots (including label and which services do carry the album according to Yahoo! Audio Search):

Gemma Hayes – The Roads Don’t Love You (Source)
Broken Social Scene – Broken Social Scene (City Slang; iTunes)
Eric Bibb – A Ship Called Love (iTunes, MSN Music)
Ted Barnes – Underbelly (Sketchbook)
Babyshambles – Down in Albion (Rough Trade) *
Danger Doom – The Mouse and The Mask (Epitaph; iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic, MSN Music, AudioLunchbox)
Coldcut – Sound Mirrors (Ninja Tune)
Breakestra – Hit The Floor (Ubiquity; iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic)
Various – I Believe To My Soul (Work Song/Warners; BuyMusic.com)
Public Enemy – New Whirl Odor (Slamjamz; Rhapsody, eMusic, PassAlong)
Klashnekoff – Focus Mode (Reprezent) *
Jehst – Nuke Proof Suit (Reprezent)
Proof – Searching for Jerry Garcia (Iron Fist)
Practical Headz – Who Iz It? (Timeless Music Project/Chocolate Fireguard; iTunes)
Ray – Deep Blue Happy (Pito)
Robert Pollard – From A Compound Eye (Merge; eMusic, Rhapsody)
Charlotte Greig – Quite Silent (Harmonium)
Bronagh Gallagher – Precious Soul (Saltydog)
David Ford – In Sincerely Apologise For All The Trouble I’ve Caused (Independent)
Tim Ries and Friends – The Rolling Stones Project (Concord; iTunes, eMusic, Rhapsody, Napster, MSN Music)
Spiers and Boden – Songs (Feelside)
Various – And They All Sang Rosselsongs (Fuse)
Flook – Haven (Flatfish)
Various – Never The Same (Honest Jons)
Cherish The Ladies – Woman of the House (Rounder; iTunes)
Akron/Family – Akron/Family (Young God; iTunes, Napster, MusicMatch, Rhapsody, eMusic)
Department of Eagles – The Cold Nose (Melodic)
Panico – Subliminal Kill (Tiger Sushi; iTunes)
Jackie-O Motherfucker – Flags of the Sacred Harp (ATP) *
Hototogisu – Ghosts From The Sun (Important)
The Hospitals – I’ve Visited The Island of Jocks and Jazz (Load; Napster, PassAlong)
Nurse With Wound/Jim O’Rourke – Tape Monkey Mooch: Angry Electric Finger 1 (Beta-Lactam Ring)
Randy – Randy The Band (Fat Wreck-Chords; iTunes, MusicMatch, Rhapsody, PassAlong)
Linval Thompson – Inna De Yard (Makasound)
Mi and l’Au – Mi and l’Au (Young God; iTunes, eMusic)
Thione Seck – Orientation (Stern’s Africa)
Krzysztof Komeda – Rosemary’s Baby/Cul-De-Sac/The Fearless Vampire Killers (Harkit)
Bobby Johnson – King of the Ants (La-La Land)
Dario Marianelli – The Brothers Grimm (WSM)
Hockey Night – Keep Guessin’ (Lookout)
Isabel Campbell and Mark Lanegan – Ballad of the Broken Seas (V2) *
The Lobi Traore Group – Lobi Traore (Honest Jons) *
Lords of Altamont – Lords Have Mercy (Gearhead; eMusic)
Tortoise/Bonnie “Prince” Billy – The Brave and The Bold (Overcoat/Touch & Go; eMusic)
Various – Start Your Own Country (Loose)
Paula Frazer – Leave The Sad Things Behind (Bridman; iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, MSN Music, PassAlong)
Mike Stinson – Last Fool At The Bar (Boronda)
Jim Noir – Jim Noir (My Dad)
The Ruts – Babylon’s Burning Reconstructed (Collision)
The Wrens – The Meadowlands (Absolutely Kosher; iTunes, Napster, Musicmatch, Rhapsody, MSN Music, AudioLunchbox, eMusic, PassAlong)
Sandrine Kiberlain – Manquait Plus Que Ca… (Virgin France)

Final Math:
Total Albums This Month: 80
Haves: 29 (36%)
Have Nots: 51 (64%)
Assuming iTunes carries all our Haves, their score: 38 (48%)

Comments:

• Pretty poor score this month. But note that on a percentage basis iTunes didn’t do any better than they did last month, so it’s the entire category of “licensed music” that didn’t fare so well this month, not just Yahoo!.
• This brings up one of my long-standing concerns that the trends we’re seeing in the music industry (higher percentage of all sales are independent labels than ever before, high percentage of digital sales are “catalog” releases rather than “new releases”, known artists are moving to smaller labels) actually work against the notion that we can proactively go out and licenense all the music in the world. If the number of music producers is increasing daily, there’s clearly a licensing bottleneck. I’d argue that iTunes has more music not because they’ve been more aggressive about licensing, but because they’re the largest and the labels and artists are coming to them, rather than them seeking out every label Ian MacKaye’s story of how Dischord ended up with iTunes backs up this notion.
• Check out that Kevin Coyne record! Quite a surprise how amazing it is. I sent a copy to my dad (via Amazon — the old fashioned way ).
• A few questions for John at MusicNet: a) Why don’t we have the Broken Social Scene album? We seem to have other albums on City Slang. Is it because it’s on Arts and Crafts here in the states? b) Why are we missing the Danger Doom album? It’s on Epitaph/ADA (which we carry). Every service has this but us. c) Also curious how I would find the Joe Henry-produced “I Believe To My Soul”. Am I just not finding this because it’s oddly labeled as a various artists release? d) Why don’t we have the new Public Enemy record? It’s on SlamJamz, which we do seem to carry (we have the single), and eMusic and Rhapsody both have it. e) After this exercise I’d like to cast votes for Concord, Young God, and Absolutely Kosher as a few labels that most services seem to have except us.

As an added bonus, check out this playlist of Mojo’s Best Music of 2005. They printed 50 and we had 46 of them (92% of the best music of 2005, not bad), including 18 of the top 20! Lots of good stuff in there. Put that playlist on random and you’re certain to find some great music you missed last year.

Thanks for reading. I hope this was interesting or illuminating in some way. Most of all I hope it’ll make you think more critically before making any one of the following (untrue) statements:

• Yahoo! Music Unlimited has everything!
• Yahoo! Music Unlimited doesn’t have shit!
• iTunes has everything!
• eMusic has all the indies!

The truth is much more complicated than that in 2006. The good news, though, is that all of the above-mentioned digital music services are adding great music to their already gigantic catalogs every single day, and you’re already able to enjoy the entire catalog of Deerhoof in each one of them (that is, no one is betting on strictly the most popular of music). The catalog is headed toward commodity status. In the future you’ll choose your service based on who gives you the most utility around this commoditized catalog. But we’re not there quite yet. The free market for digital media is just now being built. We all have a lot to do to figure out the most scalable and efficient way to build this catalog and marketplace.

Best,
ian c rogers
Yahoo! Music