Computers may have made buying music easier, but they also made it a lot less fun. Which explains why Tom Gibbons and Josh Koppel created TuneBooks, multimedia reinventions of liner notes. "There's a lot more to music than the music," Gibbons says. "I want to read lyrics, look at photos, and know who the band gives shout-outs to." The pair created a prototype in early 2005; late that year, Atlantic Records released the first one, a production for British glam band the Darkness.
Customers download TuneBooks along with an album and then navigate a sometimes dizzying QuickTime-powered trip through pictures, videos, credits, and lyrics. Gibbons and Koppel hope that digital art for music can help revive the sale of albums on services like iTunes, which are dominated by singles. About 50 releases now come with TuneBooks, and that's just the start. Next up: products that work on MP3 players and mobile phones. As Gibbons says, "We need to be where the music lives."
– Jeff Howe
Music Reborn
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