Rock has collided with ROM on the personal computer.
Music groups from the Cranberries to Bob Dylan, Toad the Wet Sprocket and the Rolling Stones are rolling out new hybrid CDs that can be used in stereo players or in PCs. Played in a PC, the discs give a multimedia look at the artists.The discs are so new they haven't yet acquired a name that sticks. They're being called "enhanced music CD," "CD Plus" or "Audio/Vision CD." The Cranberries call their release a "Rainbow" disc - a way of saying it's multicultural because it can be played on audio drives or Macintosh and Windows computers.
While the music industry wrestles with what to call the things, some bands are rushing to try out the technology.
Enhanced CDs feature everything from elementary text and graphics to live concert clips and interviews with artists or band members, taking full advantage of the sound and audio capabilities of today's computers. The cost of an enhanced CD ranges from no more than a regular audio CD to $7 to $10 extra, depending on what's on it.
I sampled two enhanced CDs - Sarah McLachlan's "The Freedom Sessions" and The Cranberries' "Doors and Windows." I liked what I heard and loved what I saw.
Both CDs are loaded with interviews, performance video clips (using Apple's QuickTime technology) and information about the musicians. From the opening home page you click on objects to travel through the musicians' history, lives, concerts and commentaries.
McLachlan introduces you to her band, explains the genesis of her new album, shares her thoughts on touring and takes you along on a recent trip to Thailand and Cambodia. As she describes the trip, sponsored by World Vision, you see and hear video clips of her playing with children and then serenading them. The sound and images were awesome.
The Cranberries' disc is packed with more than 11/2 hours of multimedia magic. Just about everything you see is interactive, from pictures on walls to scrapbooks on tables to their boots.
Browsing through two scrapbooks and a photo album gave me an up-close-and- personal familiarity with a band I'd heard but knew little about. In one scrapbook I read a clipping from the Limerick Tribune about the band's first concert as one band member recalled the experience. In another scrapbook I perused lead singer Dolores O'Riordan's wedding pictures as she commented on the ceremony.
I saw and heard a snippet of their performance at Woodstock '94 and watched and listened as they talked about touring. It was the band and I, alone together. Amazing.
The music industry and some critics argue about whether enhanced CDs are fad or future.
A spokeswoman for Sam Goody and Musicland told the Deseret News there isn't a huge demand yet for enhanced CDs. "People are just starting to find out about them," she said.
I think enhanced CDs will be a growing phenomenon. I don't think people will crank up the multimedia tracks as often as they do the audio tracks. But they'll do it a few times because they'll like the idea of getting to know more about the musicians they enjoy in a personal way.
As with any technology, the new hybrid CDs haven't taken final form yet. Music companies are trying to figure out where to put the multimedia tracks on enhanced CDs and how to make them compatible for different systems. The biggest problem is that a multimedia track played on a regular audio CD produces irritating white noise.
So far, most companies put the track first and warn consumers to skip the track when the CD is not played on a PC. One problem not yet mastered is how to pack a CD with multimedia AND include lots of audio cuts. The Cranberries' CD, for instance, has room for just five songs.
I had to experiment a bit to get the enhanced CDs to run, especially on my work computer, which runs Windows 3.1. They operated much better on a system running Windows 95. A tip: Use the browse feature in the run menu to open executable files. And for quirky bands like the Cranberries, click everywhere or you'll miss a hidden surprise.
Minimum system requirements: Mac System 7.0 or Windows 3.1, double speed CD-ROM, 8 MB RAM (4 for the Cranberries disc) and color monitor.