At the $5-or-more level, buyers can choose to download the album in [DRM-free] MP3 or FLAC format, the latter being exact copies of the original source files without compression. Also included is a single MP3 file featuring the music without track breaks. Link Moar
M:
mp3 or flac?
T:
flac is for wankers
M:
…
T:
Audio compression algorithms work by taking out extraneous data (likemicroseconds of silence) from the raw source data file reducing the total file size. Lossless algorithms like FLAC or winzip for that matter, studiously make sure that all of the original meaning down to the last bit can be recovered. MP3 goes further by also taking out, unrecoverably, some extra data from parts of the sound file that the human ear can’t actually hear resulting in substantially further file size reduction. For really low-bitrate mp3 compression (like 128bit or less) the algorithm is starting to take out some parts of the sound that the human ear can tell the difference, just a little bit.
Essentially however, the differences between good high-bit-rate mp3 (like 192bit VBR) and completely lossless compression like FLAC are largely imaginary.
Not that true-blood audiophiles aren’t willing to pay gobs of money all the time for imaginary sound differences all the time.
These people are wankers.
mp3 is also more widely supported by every media player everywhere. FLAC not so much.
M:
whodathunk. damn it’s really hard to decide which track to send. they’re all really really good!!
T:
OMG holy crap ya!
Why has this turned into a music blog all of a sudden? I dunno, but file under Girl Talk Doesn’t need bill C-61 to rock you.
Now go download the crap out of this album. And pay for it.
Ironic for what’s basically a hyperkinetic schizophrenic cyclone mashup of past factory-produced hits in a nuclear blender of awesome, this album is both 100% the future of music… and a future that is wide OPEN.
Girl Talk is a two-fer another example of alternative (PWYC) business model that will probably be wildly successful. And of course, he’s long been the poster child of fair-use in mashups and sampling.
Photos: Greg Gillis / Girl Talk live at Spin Gallery in 2006. Moar.