Some of you might be old enough to remember people complaining about how the music just didn't sound right on any format but vinyl (including a creepy character accused of rape on a episode of 90210), and of course, there are those who complain about any file format that isn't completely lossless. Also, there's John Mellencamp.

Last year, Amazon and iTunes made concessions to upgrade the quality of their download tracks.

Some artists want the bar raised even higher. Metallica announced last week that its upcoming untitled album, in addition to being released on CD, will be available as a higher-quality digital download ($12) and on audiophile vinyl in a limited-edition $125 boxed set. It's due this fall....

John Mellencamp's upcoming Life, Death, Love and Freedom CD, due July 15, will come with, at no extra charge, a high-definition DVD stereo version that will play in most DVD players. Producer T Bone Burnett and his engineering team developed the DVD music technology because they grew exasperated about the state of digital music. Listening to the high-res disc, "I could hear the music the way it was intended to be heard," Mellencamp said in a statement.

Neil Young recently announced that the first volume of his long-awaited archives project would arrive this fall on 10 Blu-ray Discs. The rocker, who has long decried the sound of CD and digital recording as brittle, says, "Previous technology required unacceptable quality compromises." In addition to HD video, Blu-ray Disc players support the playback of high-resolution music beyond a CD's dynamic range.

I'm sorry, but it's clear that the majority of consumers couldn't care less about the specifics of how their music sounds. The first thing they are concerned about is price ("128kbps MP3 files? A bit of a downer, but it's their entire discography in one torrent!"). Someone willing to question the intentions of, let's say, Metallica might believe that selling albums in increasingly expensive formats is more of a revenue-based move than an artistic one. I'm sure the new Mudcrutch album rings true and beautiful on audiophile vinyl, but it feels better for the bottom line when you pay $30 for it instead of $10. Even if the higher-quality option is at no additional cost, as in the case of the Mellencamp disc, any format that requires people to listen somewhere besides their car or a MP3 player of some sort is going to be immediately marginalized.

But, hey, maybe the reason I want to purchase fewer discs this year isn't that the albums themselves are bad, they're just pressed that way.

Musicians push for better sound online and on disc [USA Today]

Those daring to find out what lurks behind song titles like "For The Children," "Troubled Land" and "If I Die Sudden" will find a DVD alongside the CD they pick up. The DVD isn't really a DVD, though. It's a CODE disc, which you can play on your DVD player and download to iTunes but will sound "virtually indistinguishable from the master tapes."

T Bone Burnett and his team of engineers developed CODE, a proprietary audio technology that creates high-definition audio files that are virtually indistinguishable from the original master tapes. The resonance, warmth and presence that has been realized with CODE is unprecedented in the digital era. The CODE version of "Life, Death, Love and Freedom" is a DVD that will come packaged with a standard CD version of the album, available at all retail outlets, at no additional cost to the consumer. The CODE disc is playable on virtually all DVD machines including stand-alone players and drives integrated into computer systems. The DVD's content can be copied into most computer music software including iTunes and can, then, be downloaded onto personal music players such as the iPod. The standard CD is included to answer all possible compatibility questions. Mellencamp commented, "When T Bone introduced me to CODE, it was a remarkable experience. I could hear the music the way it was intended to be heard. I'm very happy the people are going to be able to share this experience in a way that's so true to our original intent."

So is it just a higher bit rate? How is it different from other albums released on DVD Audio? How does one define "warmth"? Only T-Bone knows.

John Mellencamp Set For Life, Death, Love and Freedom [Antimusic]

Not to mention that the far-right types whose votes McCain is seeking won't love the mildly progressive lyrics to "Our Country," which call on the government to "help the poor and common man" and suggest that "there's room enough here for science to live/ And there's room enough here for religion to forgive." And does McCain really want to associate himself with those "Pink Houses" lines about the "simple man" paying for the "the thrills, the bills and the pills that kill"?

Gasp! Mildly progressive ideas like... helping the poor, the kind of liberalism that not even the most centrist GOP member could campaign behind. Well, at least McCain's following campaign song tradition this year, as choices by both Republicans and Democratics have been infamously marked by the candidates ignoring or overlooking any "off-message" sentiments in the lyrics. And here he already had a catchy, readymade campaign song, even if that one was a little too on-message.

Mellencamp Asks McCain To Stop Using Tunes [Rolling Stone]

"People say I sold out...No, I got sold out. Sometime during the '90s record companies made the decision that us guys who had been around for a long time and had sold millions of records and were household names just weren't as interesting as girls in stretch dresses."

Ah, yes: The old "blame the bimbos" defense, the last resort for aging rockers who can't understand why people would rather listen to "Toxic" than to the 22nd retread of "Pink Houses." No one's saying the music industry is doing a great job when it comes to treating its elder statesmen and stateswomen: Warner Brothers, for example, was none-too-plussed with Lindsey Buckingham's Under The Skin, and that was one of the better records of last year. But it's not major-label mismanagement or corporate-owned radio or sex-crazed consumers that's keeping Mellencamp off the airwaves: "Our Country" is just a terrible song. The Pussycat Dolls could do it as a duet with Rihanna, and it would still stall at No. 7 at TRL. This is not to suggest that Mellencamp should be put out to pasture (in fact, please don't, as he'll wind up writing a bunch of songs about pastures), but we ask that fifty-plus musicians adapt the Neil Young/Tom Petty formula: For every one (1) long-winded complaint about how no one in the record industry knows what to do with your music, you must release two (2) songs that would hold up in a modern-day setlist.

Changes in Mellencamp Country [NY Times]

[E]xecutives at Mr. Mellencamp's label, Universal Republic Records, worry that with the ad saturating television broadcasts for nearly six months before the release of the new album, some fans could sour on the song. A commercial-length excerpt of a song may not allow listeners to appreciate its nuances. "Exposure is one of the most valuable assets there is these days," says Universal Republic President Monte Lipman. "But when you hear the song in the context of a commercial, it doesn't do it justice."

Indeed, backlash may be setting in. The ads have already inspired at least one parody video on YouTube, substituting pictures from the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal, guys with beer guts and other unflattering aspects of America — with Mr. Mellencamp's song in the background.

Mass exposure can be especially hard to come by for an artist like Mr. Mellencamp, whose best commercial days may be behind him. His last studio album, 2003's "Trouble No More," has sold just 180,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That is a far cry from his two biggest hits, "American Fool" and "Scarecrow," both of which have shipped more than five million copies, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Universal Republic has sold 39,000 digital downloads of "Our Country" via the iTunes Music Store and other outlets, according to SoundScan.

Taking Chevrolet's exposure—and money—must have initially seemed like a win-win situation for Mellencamp, who, like many other aging rockers, falls into a limbo: he's too old to get spins on mainstream rock radio, but his songs are too new to get much love from classic-rock outlets. Later in the article, a Universal bigwig notes that a few Mellencamp songs will be sent to country radio as well as rock radio; while that sort of radio blitz has given a second life to artists like Bon Jovi, we can't help but think it's a curious move for this particular album, what with the politically charged hand-wringing and sellout accusations "Our Country" and its video have already inspired. Which is why the timing of this campaign is probably going to backfire on Mellencamp and Universal; unless the Chevy ads start appending grinning mugs of Mellencamp and "Album in stores this January!!!" to their product shots, we don't see how this long run-up to an album's release date can translate into SoundScans.

After a Song Is Featured in a Chevy Ad, Will Consumers Still Buy the Album? [WSJ]