Restoring Those Old Liner Notes in Music’s Digital Era
- 7 years ago
Restoring Those Old Liner Notes in Music’s Digital Era
Working with Nigel Grainge, an influential record executive who died in June; Erik Loyer, an app developer
and media artist; and Jon Blaufarb, an industry lawyer, Mr. Roswell in 2007 began to design what he calls an interactive “context engine.” Stream a song on a Sonos speaker and, if TunesMap’s app is also fired up on Apple TV, images and historical information related to the artist or a song’s origins begin to float buy.
Much of the material that once accompanied an album has long since been stripped away — not just the lyrics and thank-you lists,
but also essays, artwork and even basic details like songwriting credits — leaving listeners with little more on their screens to look at but a song title and a postage-stamp-size cover image.
For a Bob Dylan song, the app shows vintage photographs of Greenwich Village, news clippings
and links to related artists (like Martin Scorsese, who directed the Bob Dylan documentary “No Direction Home”).
One company, TunesMap, wants to return much of that lost information,
and more, through an interactive display that, when cued by a song playing on a streaming service, will present a feed of videos, photographs and links to related material.
He bemoans the way early digital players and online music stores like iTunes removed all sense of music coming from a particular place and time.
Working with Nigel Grainge, an influential record executive who died in June; Erik Loyer, an app developer
and media artist; and Jon Blaufarb, an industry lawyer, Mr. Roswell in 2007 began to design what he calls an interactive “context engine.” Stream a song on a Sonos speaker and, if TunesMap’s app is also fired up on Apple TV, images and historical information related to the artist or a song’s origins begin to float buy.
Much of the material that once accompanied an album has long since been stripped away — not just the lyrics and thank-you lists,
but also essays, artwork and even basic details like songwriting credits — leaving listeners with little more on their screens to look at but a song title and a postage-stamp-size cover image.
For a Bob Dylan song, the app shows vintage photographs of Greenwich Village, news clippings
and links to related artists (like Martin Scorsese, who directed the Bob Dylan documentary “No Direction Home”).
One company, TunesMap, wants to return much of that lost information,
and more, through an interactive display that, when cued by a song playing on a streaming service, will present a feed of videos, photographs and links to related material.
He bemoans the way early digital players and online music stores like iTunes removed all sense of music coming from a particular place and time.