What’s Happening to Music Formats?

Good or bad…music formats are changing. One gives us more information; the other allows us to change the music. We at Greenlight360, find all things entertainment related interesting, and well…our CEO, Ricky Berger is a rock n’ roller, so of course this falls under the “things to watch for” category. But not only that, this news will definitely have an impact on most of us.

Cocktail or CMX? Could it be possible that MP3, WAV and M4A could be a thing of the past? Apparently major labels – Sony, Warner, Universal, and EMI have something up their sleeve – CMX. What is that, you ask? CMX is a new digital album format that will include all the things we’ve come to know and love (or for some – not need, or not care) about purchasing physical music at the ol’ brick and mortar – the CMX file format will include songs, lyrics, videos, liner notes and artwork.

Interestingly, this news of CMX came just weeks after Apple made an announcement of a similar project called — Cocktail.

Hmmm, I have to wonder how this will all turn out, given that …. well, who has the market share of MP3 players in the US?? …piece of fruit anyone?

Read more about CMX and Cocktail at: crunchgear and guardian.co.uk.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes. MXP4, a startup company, has an interactive tool where listeners are able to “play” and interact with digital music. This file format will allow users to remix tracks, suppress tracks, make karaoke versions, add images, video content, add music layers and more.

From the MXP4 vision/mission: “The music experience must be enriched by engaging people on a more personal and more complete level: people should not just play music, but play with it, share it and make it part of their world. This is Remix Culture.”

This interesting idea raised $2.7M in VC funds earlier this year.

However, it seems the jury is still out on MXP4 – the reaction seems mixed on whether or not this format will succeed. Is this an attempt for the music industry to re-engage its audience?

I’m not sure about this one, although it’s an interesting idea, do we really want to mess with the original artist’s vision of their music? Maybe I’m just a purist…and I say again – what happens with my favorite MP3 player? Will the music portion of the new format be backwards compatible with existing devices if I decide I like my remixed version?

Learn more at techcrunch.com and hypebot.com.

Blog post by Juliette Tai, Director of Research & Competitive Intelligence

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