Trends: unwrapped.com
Marcel Feldmar
You got amazon.com. You got CD Now and the world of Columbia House on-line. Is that all? Not if you zip around the corner… there’s something else out there. It’s a little different, a little more obscure, a little more independent, a little more underground. It’s unwrapped.com, and it’s a great place to find out about some cool bands that you need to find out about.
It’s not just an on-line store where you can buy CDs… you are given the opportunity to create your own CD. Make a mix of songs that interest you, choose bands with names that intrigue you, and you get twelve songs to sample sent your way in a nicely designed package. I took some time, dived in to the site, and then talked with owner Ian Fitzpatrick.
There are actually four owners in the unwrapped world, with Ian, who says he gets to deal with all the “fun stuff.” There’s also Steve, who handles all things technical, Colleen, who handles the books, and Jim runs operations. Also helping round out the minimal staff is Roy, who deals with all of the indie pop, and helps out with some of the operations, as well as Shannon who does shipping. The history of the company leads back to December 1997, but the initial on-line debut didn’t happen until August of 1998.
The first thing I noticed was the design. Very easy to read layout with an excellent color scheme. Subtle, yet distinct. I asked Ian about it, and it turns out that the site as well as the packaging for the mixed CDs were both designed by a company in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (which is also the real world location of unwrapped) called Brown & Co. Evidently the company’s work on unwrapped got them a nice award from the glossy design quarterly known as Print Magazine .
I was thrown from excitement to frustration to excitement almost right away… finding an on-line CD mail order store that offered emo rock pop indie sweets from Alison’s Halo to Burning Airlines, and all the letters of the alphabet after that as well. That was exciting. It was going to be tricky to just choose twelve songs… then I got a bit tense as I discovered that not all the songs were available for your mix-making desires. I mentioned this to Ian, and he was quick to point out that unwrapped.com is not meant to be focused on the mix CD, but the mixes you make are used as a promotional tool. “The idea is not to sell the songs as an end product, but rather to make the songs available as a promotional item. We hope that people will find something they like… and then buy the album. If all of the songs are made available, then people might buy enough of the songs from an album that they no longer felt it necessary to seek out the full length… the songs, in general, are chosen by either myself or the band… I try to choose songs that display the broadest range of a bands’ styles and talents.”
After realizing the power of this tool, I eagerly explored the categories of rock and pop, trying to find the music that would make me smile. I was pleased by the accuracy of the short descriptions by each of the virtual offerings, and also by the addition of a link to other bands on the site that you might like. If you like Braid, you might also like to check out these songs by Ativin; if you like Butterfly Train, you might also like 764-Hero. I did get a bit confused by the distinction between rock and pop, finding the aforementioned 764-Hero listed under both. Ian understood the trickiness in this, and explained his thoughts on the matter. “You’re right, some fit in both, and we have tried to accommodate that whenever possible. For the most part, it is a matter of making a judgment call, and hoping that people will follow you. In many cases, one song from a band may be folk, one may be pop, and one may be rock… it’s all subjective, so this can be particularly difficult.” It can be difficult, but it becomes a learning process, and you just find more music you need to hear.
I wonder about how unwrapped approaches the bands, and Ian tells me that he usually prefers to deal with the label, as long as the label makes sure the band knows about what’s going on, “In general, I deal with labels, although I have dealt directly with a number of bands. It can be such a perilous maneuver to circumvent a label or a band, that I try to deal with the label while having them inform the band of what exactly we are doing.”
I ask Ian if the bands get paid for the use of the songs, and how that works. He answers directly, “We pay royalties quarterly, based directly upon the number of songs the artist/label has sold. Sometimes, the royalties are paid to the band, other times to the label (it depends on who holds the rights). In the case of the latter, we trust that the label will do right by their artists. We try very hard to work only with labels who do make it a point to serve their artists well.”
I start thinking about all these bands I’ve never heard of, getting psyched up to receive my personally picked CD sampler, and I start thinking about all the other bands I’ve never heard of, and ask Ian about the catalog. How often do the listings change? Ian tells me that they add some material almost every day. “Usually, the change is rather small, so that a frequent visitor won’t notice a dramatic change to the catalog, although there are days when entire new labels are added. We constantly work to evolve the site.”
Great, I think. More music all the time. I’m likely to start spending too much money without ever getting to a real record store. This leads me into a how’s business doing segue. Ian takes the segue and runs. “We’re quite happy with how the site is doing. Hits are way way up in recent weeks, and people are indeed making mixes and buying records at a pretty fast pace. Everyone here was really pretty tight before we started the company, so we all get the pleasure of spending our evenings together packaging up orders. That’s fine with us. The addition of regular CD and record sales has fueled mix CD orders, and vice versa, which is exactly what we had hoped for.”
So things are going well, and the future is bright, right? Ian gives me a glimpse into his future. “It’s always best to stick with what one knows, no matter what field or pursuit one follows. In our case, small indie pop and rock music is what we know. We would never stray from that. And yes, we plan on adding more of it every day, along with a lot of live and unreleased tracks we are adding in the coming weeks. Also, of course, more great zines!”
And that about unwrapped it up for me… until I got my CD a couple of days later. It was perfect. The songs I chose in the order I chose, the track listings printed out nice, and the bands I’d never heard of now existing for me, making me smile… unwrapped rapture.
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As an experiment, we asked a few of our writers to try out the unwrapped.com experience. Here’s what they had to say:
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It’s a bit silly that this entire company has been able to spring to life by the simple advent of CD-burning technology. Make no mistake about it, the compact disc you’re going to receive from unwrapped.com is nothing more than that. It’s got that strangely bluish underbelly and the slight background noise (for which the degree of varies from stereo to stereo) that says “this is technology that has not been perfected yet.” Also, be wary… if your stereo is either slightly old or arrogantly sensitive, you might have trouble even getting the disc to play. I had to go through an extensive battle with the play button to even take a listen.
But alas, taken for what it is and disregarding the D.I.Y. hue, this is a rather neat service – so long as you’re willing to take a risk on new music. The impressively long list of bands featured all come from the indie-rock genre and its surrounding interpretations, which leaves room for some more folk outfits and somewhat electronically processed music. If you’re looking for anything else – punk, ska, swing, hardcore – you might want to look elsewhere.
If you’re seeking something in specific, it’s pretty easy to find it. There are a couple ways of searching the catalog of performers offered up on the site, be it alphabetically, by genre, or by label. If you’re just trying to take a whack at new music, then the site is relatively user-friendly. Browsing through a seemingly endless supply of bands, one is presented with a quick and minutely useful summary of the band and song, including a pointless-yet-entertaining suggestion of what the song would be “perfect for.” For example, according to unwrapped.com, Betwixt’s “Seahorse” is perfect for deep sea diving at night. Well… hmm… okay.
The descriptions themselves aren’t the most accurate or encompassing of things, but they will lead you to decide if listening to the soundclip is worth your time or not. Each song is accompanied by a quick soundclip in Real Audio format, usually lasting about 15 seconds. Whereas descriptions aren’t always the most accurate of things, the soundclips will generally give a good idea of what you’re getting yourself into.
Next comes the major downfall, however. There’s an option that has grouped bands of similar interest together, so that when I find, for instance, the Push Kings, I can continue on to find other bands like them. However, after checking out just such a list, you can’t return to your original spot on the main band list, and must start over at the beginning. When this is going in alphabetical order and I was already up to P, I was not very happy.
The process was rather lengthy, and I spent a good half an hour searching through song after song until I had finally put together a mix-CD filled with bands of which I had never heard of, but sounded neat from their soundclip. If anything, unwrapped.com is great at exposing you to bands that might have eluded you before, but it is a risk… of about 14 dollars.
Not more than three days after ordering, the CD arrived in my mailbox, and I must say, I’m really pleased with it. These songs I chose are actually pretty good, and although the CD comes with only a little quasi-professional cardboard case and a flimsy piece of paper telling me the track listing and the album for which each song comes off of, I’d say it was a good deal. Guppyboy’s “Holiday” turned out to be my mix CD’s gem, a somewhat melodic, dorky love pop song, complete with harmonization and cutesy lyrics. As well, Crooner’s catchy pop-orchestral “Love Makes the Sun Shine Bright” makes for quite a stand-out, making use of a horn and string section and with vocals slightly reminiscent of Belle and Sebastian.
Unwrapped.com is a win or lose situation. Chances are, with soundclips and a rather immense list of bands, that you’re bound to find something you like. But do be weary–if you have a stereo that decides to reject CDs on occasion, you might want to find another way to listen before you go and ordering anything. CD-burning technology is nowhere near perfection, but at least it’s brought us some really neat things in the meanwhile.
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There’s a heck of a lot of music out there, some of the best of which gets overlooked. This is one of the reasons why I think unwrapped is such a good idea.
The site allows you to make mix CDs of songs from underground artists, twelve tracks or 78 minutes to a disc, whichever comes first. They’ll burn them, screen them, package them, and ship them out to you for about the cost of buying a CD at a typical retail store. You can select the genre of music you’re interested in (pop, rock, or folk) and browse through the artists, or search by artist or label name. Descriptions are given to guide your journey. The fun for me was bypassing the artists I was already familiar with in favor of bands I had never heard of but which had intriguing descriptions. Sound files in Real Audio format allowed about an 18 second preview of the song, just enough to let me know if it was something I was interested in or not. I found a lot of very cool stuff this way and also avoided some stuff that disappointed me with no harm done.
The instructions are pretty straightforward. The best thing I can suggest is to visit when you have some time to look around. I sampled over thirty songs over a couple of hours before I settled on the twelve I liked the best. I went the cutesy twee indie pop route with three songs from B’ehl, and one each from the Push Kings, Brideshead, Class, Incredible Force of Junior, Lida Husik, Kickstand, Majestic, Pee, and the Three Peeps. Yeah, a lot of “Who?!” Some of these I found because of the “More like this” option, and others I just sampled at random. I feel like the winner at an Easter egg hunt – I’m so excited for this CD to arrive. These songs managed to pique my interest even through the underwaterish distortion of Real Audio, and I can’t wait to hear them on my stereo.
My only complaint would be that it seems like I’m going to run out of things I’m interested in after a few mix CDs. Hopefully they’ll keep updating the site with different bands and such in order to give their customers some fresh variety. The more the selection increases, the greater the chance that people will be more inclined to purchase their music this way. It’s nice not to be stuck with seven songs you could care less about just in order to get the three you really want. Plus less hassle for the store, who no longer has to keep some obscure album in stock waiting for the day you wander in. Now, a digital file will do. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds. In the meantime, I’ve got a great mix CD on the way, and ten new bands to track down more stuff by, some of which is actually for sale on the site. There are two Harriet compilations in particular that I’ve got my eye on, available in the original pressed-by-the-record-label CD with all the original packaged artwork. This is a cool idea for what it is, but it’ll be a while until I can let go of my collector instincts.
