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Underground > Radio & Music >

Beta Testing Music?

  
 
Matthew Fluxington
18:35 / 08.04.03
From Business 2.0:

...I wonder whether events such as the premature Radiohead unveiling might encourage more bands to embrace the "beta" aesthetic that pervades the Net. On the software side, every company from Microsoft (MSFT) down to the shareware guy next door posts early, beta versions of software for comment. There's a notion on the Net that fixing something in public is a good thing.

Performers seem to agree. The songs on Hail to the Thief are far from new to Radiohead fans; most of them have been played before audiences, and copies of those live versions have been around the Net for months. There's probably little loss of income for the band: Anyone devoted enough to download audience-recorded live versions of a song by a favorite group will surely purchase a professionally made take. These early live outings are, in essence, the beta versions, worked out in front of audiences before they're cut in a studio. What Radiohead is demanding, however, is an environment in which it can release such test versions but control the distribution completely.

That simply isn't possible anymore. Even if a digital-rights management scheme that actually works should arrive, there is no way to prevent someone from sneaking a tiny recorder into a concert or recording studio. Radiohead may be pissed off, but that's the rule now. So why not accept it and use it to their advantage? Beta versions of software become irrelevant when finalized versions ship; Radiohead and others could agree to release early versions of songs as similar stopgaps, to keep their most devoted fans satisfied.

This works, of course, only if the early-release versions are indeed different from what's on the final CD. But it can work; some bands have fans so intense that they'll pay for a chance to come along for the ride as a record is developed. Just as in software development, there would often be new "beta builds" of CD tracks, but only those with significant new features or fixes would be released to the general public. Performers could thereby release early material only when it's ready and still ensure that the music would be available before it could be distributed illegally. That's a way for them to accept the inevitable -- early Net distribution -- but still maintain control.

Does this seem like a workable innovation?

I think it depends on a lot of factors. As he says, most fans who are eager enough to snap up a record months ahead of time are the ones who are also most likely to buy the record on the day it is released. If, as Radiohead have been implying, the version of Hail To The Thief is indeed an inferior early version of the album, then I think that it can be analyzed as a beta testing scenario.

There have been a lot of cases in which hip hop records have been reworked before official release because of a bootleg of the advance had hit the streets as a bootleg cd, but in those cases, the album is usually substantially altered in a negative way. It seems very unlikely that Radiohead will go so far as to add or drop songs from their record.

Another interesting thing about releasing 'beta versions' before the 'official' album is released is the potential that the beta versions may be superior to the commercial recordings, which may undermine the relevance of the 'final' recording and the artist's intentions in ways both good and bad.

What do you think?
 
 
nedrichards is confused
00:49 / 09.04.03
Weezer did this with Maladroit and yes most of the demos were better than the final versions. But you still bought the record and you got the better demos. Score!
 
 
videodrome
03:17 / 09.04.03
It depends on where you draw the line between Art and Commerce, or if you draw a line at all.

Consider a film. Test screenings could become 'beta screenings'. More arguments have been lobbied back and forth about the validity of the testing process, but it boils down to the same process that occurs when a writer submits to an editor or group of friends or a band plays new songs live. 'Hey - does this work?'

Radiohead did this last year, and the songs obviously worked. Done. Boys, let's hit the studio. Demanding that musicians in general and Radiohead specifically submit to this artificial beta process smacks of the critic who would be creator. Everyone wants a piece of the creative pie, whether they've got the goods or not, and commenting on an unfinished product is more than enough for many.

Balls.

Claiming that this leakage is now 'the rule' is bullshit. Actually, it's quite against the rules - I'm sure there are strict contracts decorated with every studio hands' signature prohibiting this sort of thing.

Beta versions aren't meant to be permanent. Live recordings of 'new' songs circulate, yes, but among a small group of people. Even the number who downloaded any of the shows last year is dwarfed by those who buy the final record. A test print of a film is not released, nor are the proofs of a photographer or the studies of an artist. (Well, yes, all of these are released, but that's another point.)

But there's the software comparison. And that gets back to Art/V/Commerce. Which does Business 2.0 want music to be? Given their name, I'd go with commerce, and this is supported by the piece. Yes, beta versions of software are perpetually available, but with very few exceptions, software is not art, nor is it meant to be. Music has the potential to be art, but this beta nonsense would have it reduced to a comittee product, leaving Radiohead standing next to all those corporate whores we love to slag. In point of fact, software is the only arena in which beta versions are openly released and perpetually circulated, but how like a website to confuse the internet microcosm with real life.
 
 
videodrome
03:23 / 09.04.03
Specifically adressing the last paragraph, Einsturzende Neubauten have been doing exactly that, though with the qualification that those who have paid to come along for the ride are actually financing the record.

Live webcasts of recording sessions have been provided and archived, with streaming MP3 versions of the 'beta' versions of many songs. Given the scale on which the band operates, the argument could be made that this apparently commercial act is in reality a well-crafted artistic enterprise. In addition, while paying members are free to comment on songs, there is little suspicion that any but the most pointed and astute observation will affect the outcome of the work.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
13:15 / 09.04.03
Well, one thing that the article fails to address is that only huge major label acts with a rabid built-in audience who have access to high speed internet on personal computers have to worry about this shit. The overwhelming majority of artists recording today will never go through what's happening to Radiohead right now. So this is not "the rule," as he says.

A businessman's "beta test" is a music lover's "obscure alternate take," because art is not technology. A different version of a song isn't a test version, it's just a variable recording. A person can say that the 'beta' version isn't the real thing, but it is. It is just as real as any other recording.
 
 
videodrome
13:47 / 09.04.03
Very true. It's an issue of nomenclature. A beta, in the sense being discussed here, is something released that is known to have faults, with the intention that those faults will be corrected based on public experience. That's a far cry from an alternate take - a discrete object not used to solicit feedback. I'm all for the latter, while the former as applies to music is pure foolishness.
 
  
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