Sleevenotes (and lapelnotes)

A new music format?! I'm only just coming to terms with MP3s and now there's Playbutton, whereby albums are released in a self-playing format that you can affix to your clothes. Plug in and it plays. Simple as that.

While it might seem futuristic, in many ways the Playbutton is actually backwards-looking, as this BBC article underlines. For a start, it has echoes of the 1970s phenomenon of flexidiscs sold with cardboard record players. Second, it represents a turn back towards music being released in physical form. And third, it's almost wilfully "anachronistic" (inventor Nick Dangerfield's word) in that nothing else can be played on it other than the pre-loaded album and there's no shuffle function out of respect for the art of track sequencing. (You suspect Steve Shepherd of Cardiff's Real Record Club would approve in that respect, at least...)

Are people going to be happy to buy music in a form that can't be enjoyed on other platforms? And does it really matter to people that they can openly flaunt their listening choices in public when those albums are available to download for free online? I'm not convinced on either front - it feels too much like swimming against the flood.

So, chances are we'll be viewing Playbuttons as a gimmicky novelty in a few years' time. But it's an interesting experiment all the same, and good to see some of the first artists to have released albums in the format include The XX, Dirty Three and The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart.