Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

This past weekend marked the fortieth anniversary of The Beatles’s landmark Sgt. Peppers record. In its time, Sgt Peppers was a revolutionary work of art, pioneering not only in the field of songwriting and recording, but in design and packaging as well; it had an impact not only on what recorded music sounded like, but also what it looked like. And today, four decades later, Paul McCartney is releasing a new record, and how he’s doing it shows just how much things have changed in the last four decades.

When Sgt. Peppers first appeared, it came stamped on vinyl, and was housed in a glorious gatefold cardboard sleeve that included a sheet of cut-out illustrated military insignias, and it could be bought only in stores. But today, McCartney’s newest record, Memory Almost Full, can be bought online from iTunes as a digital download. The songs come with no packaging and no disc (vinyl or compact). Instead what you get are computer files of the music, and a digital booklet (meaning, really, a PDF file). Of course, there’s also a physical copy for those who want it, but in addition to being sold in stores, it will also be sold in every Starbucks location. Yes, that’s right; you can get your grande caramel macchiato, a banana nut muffin, and also Paul McCartney’s latest record.

Forty years ago the Beatles released Sgt. Peppers on EMI, one of the largest record labels in the world. But for Memory Almost Full McCartney signed a deal with Hear Music, the boutique record label started by Starbucks. As McCartney said in a New York Times article over the weekend, “The major record labels are having major problems. They’re a little puzzled as to what’s happening. And I sympathize with them. But as [music producer] David Kahne said to me about a year ago, the major labels these days are like the dinosaurs sitting around discussing the asteroid.”

The coffee giant is marking the record’s release with a “global listening event.” Every Starbucks location (10,000 stores in 29 countries) will be playing the record around the clock.

McCartney also bypassed music video channels (if any of them still exist) by releasing the first video on YouTube. Meanwhile, the satellite radio station XM will heavily promote the record upon its release, alleviating the need by McCartney or his label to rely on radio stations for airplay. All of this shows how much things have changed in the music industry, and points the way for publishers to begin thinking about their own artists and products. We can either be “fools on the hill,” or else we can embrace change and remain relevant in a digitlal age.

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