Enhance Your Choices

Early IN 1997 London-based design company AMX, after almost two years of discussion and product testing with EMI, produced one of the first Enhanced Compact Discs on commercial release.
This CD (for the band Smaller) would play like a normal CD single but when run on a personal computer, it contained an interactive, multi-media section including the video for the single and some band photos, allowing the user to see the band, watch the video and glean some information about them from it. This had the potential to revolutionise the music CD industry, but so far, while it has produced some interesting results, it has not set the world on fire.
Most people probably have at least one Enhanced CD in their music collection, often only discernable by a sticker on the CD cover advertising CD Rom Video , Multi Media or the delightful includes Enhanced Element .
Early releases flagged as Enhanced CDs such as Stereophonics Local Boy In The Photograph simply contained the video, which would play in a small box in the centre of the computer screen. Space restrictions on CDs and computers mean these videos can only be played at a certain size (usually about 4 wide). Soon, to make the feature a bit more enticing, other elements were added, two of which have become staples in Enhanced CDs; the gallery of band photos and a lyrics sheet. Upon accessing the multimedia section of the CD, a viewer can choose to watch the video of the single, perhaps a sample of another video, skip through some band photos, read the lyrics or, in the case of the Foo Fighters Everlong last year, sing along as the lyrics are highlighted, karaoke-style, while the video plays.
Most Enhanced CDs have taken this standard format of video, lyrics and gallery with some small variations. Boy Band 911 provide soundbites from each of the lads on one of their singles. These direct to the camera, personal greetings speak directly to the viewer and are a very intimate way of making contact with a band s potential fanbase.
The reason why Enhanced CDs all seem to contain similar parts, given the huge scope of the medium, is that the Chart Information Network (CIN) in the UK limits the multimedia sections of chart eligible CDs to the promo video, lyrics and up to 10 band photos. The intention is to avoid a situation whereby an artist of the stature of Michael Jackson, for example, could afford to develop an entire computer game to go on a CD, possibly selling and charting it on those grounds alone.
Because of this regulation, the enhanced section of the CDs is barely marketed. Paranoid of being excluded from the charts, record companies keep the enhanced element of the CDs quiet, often not plugging this at all.
Malcolm Garrett from AMX, who produced an Enhanced CD for the Spice Girls Viva Forever believes that the majority of people who bought that single and kept it top of the charts for a number of weeks, have no idea that there is a whole interactive area on the disc.
For those with the know-how, Enhanced CDs can also be used to release promo videos that don t (or can t) appear elsewhere. Banned videos, as well as giving artists great publicity, also provide a selling point if they can put the video onto one of their singles. Jonas Ackerland s video for The Cardigans My Favourite Game was banned by many TV stations for its portrayal of reckless joyriding and violent endings. There were in fact four endings shot, and while TV stations were insisting on cuts in the original for airing, the full version was put on the band s subsequent single Erase/Rewind with a random engine generator which would choose one of four endings each time you played it. Likewise, with Aphex Twin s recent Windowlicker swear-and-freak-fest which was featured , uncut, on enhanced versions of the single. In both cases, this would have satiated many a punter keen to see what all the fuss was about.
So where to from here, if controversy can only go so far to sell this medium? The limitations of standard CDs are being circumnavigated by the use of the internet s worldwide web. Though multimedia on CD singles is not permitted to contain links to web sites, albums (bizzarely) are, and thus many multimedia enhancements on albums have sections where a user can connect to the web through them. This expands the information presented to include the official web site and other related links.
Jack Lukeman s current album Metropolis Blue has an enhanced section which almost solely relies on this. It uses whatever web browsing application the computer is running to present the standard lyrics, video and photos, but when the computer being used is connected to the internet it becomes a broader, much more informative tool. This smart idea of using the limited space on a CD as a stepping stone onto the infinitely larger internet will probably become more popular, allowing less work to be done on each individual CD release, and keeping all the information current by using the worldwide web to provide the bulk of it.
A more sophisticated development of this technology is the development of DVDs (Digital Versatile Disc). June saw the release of Bjvrk s single All Is Full Of Love on DVD, alleged to be the first such single release. Similar to the Enhanced CD it has two sections, a broadcast quality video and an audio section. Though it looks like a CD, it can only be played on a DVD player or computer DVD drives. These are currently being developed as audio and multimedia discs too, and their prime advantage is that they can contain over 10 times the amount of information of a standard CD. Although currently being used to target the video market, they could eventually become an audio/video/multimedia wonder product, with the potential to contain an entire album, a feature-length film and a vast interactive area. Many major media corporations are behind the development of DVD and with there being more players than there are products, this could be the area to watch.
The original media, however, the Enhanced Compact Disc, while technically brilliant failed to provide much more than a novelty. With the technology in this area advancing dramatically, however, it is perhaps time artists became aware of its potential, and provided the creative and financial investment to match.