Click Here to See Music : Some artists are producing CDs with visuals that can be accessed on a computer, but are consumers buying in?

Is it the MTV of the ‘90s, the latest pop music revolution? Or is it just today’s eight-track cartridge--and tomorrow’s landfill?

We’ve heard those questions with every new development in music delivery. And we’re hearing them now about enhanced CDs--discs that augment a standard audio album or EP with CD-ROM visuals that can be accessed on a computer.

Pop musicians are certainly embracing the form. Following pioneering work by such tech-head visionaries as the Residents and Todd Rundgren, the number of artists getting into the digital picture has turned into a stampede, from quirky rockers Primus to cynical Randy Newman, from avant-garde icon Yoko Ono to bluesy Bonnie Raitt, from old-guard rockers the Rolling Stones to young turks Soundgarden.

“We wanted to make some mind candy, basically, that you can waste two hours of your time with,” says Primus’ Les Claypool of the band’s new enhanced version of its 1995 “Tales From the Punchbowl” album.

And that’s exactly what it is, translating the wacky, stream-of-consciousness aesthetic of the band’s music into a surprise-filled voyage on a digital tugboat.

*

But so far it seems more artists are involved than fans.

Consumer awareness--and sales--of enhanced CDs are largely negligible. The biggest seller so far is the Stones’ “Stripped” with more than 250,000. But that’s a ringer, since it was only available in the enhanced form and most people who bought it, industry watchers believe, did so solely for the music and had little interest in the computer benefits. That’s true for many other top-selling enhanced titles, such as a Sarah McLachlin live EP released last year only as an enhanced disc (about 135,000 copies sold) and a Cranberries EP set also from last year.

A particularly dramatic example of indifference and/or a lack of awareness is Jackson Browne’s “Looking East,” which is available both as a conventional CD and enhanced. The former has sold about 100,000, the latter hasn’t even sold 2,000, even though it costs just $2-$3 more.

Still, the very fact that Browne--hardly someone associated with the cutting edge of technology--was attracted to the format lends it some credence.

Jackson Browne, techno-trailblazer?

“No,” says Browne, laughing at the suggestion. “I’m not very interested in computers. I’m just more like an opportunist.

“I used to look at the back of album covers and stare at black-and-white photos for hours,” Browne recalls. “Like the shot of Allen Ginsburg in a top hat on a Dylan album. I’d wonder, ‘What went on in that room?’ This is a way to engage your imagination.”

The enhanced “Looking East” CD takes a straightforward, though creative approach that puts it easily among the most effective of this new format.

Browne and his band members take you inside the process behind the album, with the central element allowing the fan to see and hear the evolution of the title song from a sound-check jam, through rehearsal and to the final recording. It’s insightful and informative, and presented with the warmth and casual personableness that has endeared Browne to his fans for more than two decades.

“It’s another way of expression, an extension of the artist’s expression if done correctly,” says Ted Cohen, vice president of music for Philips New Media, where he has supervised enhanced CD releases by the Cranberries, among others.

“The best designers are trying to grab a sense of the essence of the artist,” says Charly Prevost, former president of Island Records and currently a producer of enhanced CDs (he did ones by techno artist Moby and singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant) and the new technology columnist for the ICE (International CD Exchange) newsletter.

“If you’re a Primus fan you’ll relate to how the disc is constructed, and if you’re not, you may become one because of its cleverness,” Prevost says.

But few, so far, are so clever.

“The Rolling Stones’ ‘Stripped’ is basically a commercial for their ‘Voodoo Lounge’ CD-ROM,” Prevost says. “Most of the enhanced CDs I’ve seen are pretty flat.”

But that’s all moot right now as long as public awareness is also flat. The figures spell a very poor return on items that generally cost between $100,000 and $300,000 to produce.

“It’s been a haphazard launch,” says Liz Heller, Capitol Records senior vice president of new media, who oversaw the Raitt and Ono discs and has a Beastie Boys project coming. “If you sat in a record label and asked even within the company what is an enhanced CD, the answers wouldn’t be clear. That’s something we need to focus on.”

Primus’ Claypool believes he knows exactly what it will take to stimulate that focus.

“The record companies will support it when it starts making money,” he says. “Right now it’s not lucrative enough. What it’s going to take is someone like Metallica or some big popular act to make one of these that busts the door wide open.”

In the meantime, supporters are looking for ways to crack the door open just a little more. One way, says Raitt’s co-manager Ron Stone, is to view these not first as music, but as computer accessories.

“When you go to a music store and see an enhanced CD, I don’t think that’s an attraction yet,” says Stone, chairman of the Gold Mountain management company. “But when you buy a computer or software, there it could be attractive. You want something to use on your new computer.”

The real force behind growth, though, is expected to be the artists.

“We haven’t begun to see what the multimedia stars are going to do,” Capitol’s Heller says. “Madonna is as much a video artist as a music artist. She could do some terrific things. I’m starting to encounter artists who have been thinking about this now and that’s starting to be reflected in the way enhanced CDs are taking shape.”

But not everyone’s confident that it’s not just a passing novelty. Even Browne and Claypool admit that they have a bit of a been-there, done-that feeling after working on enhanced CDs.

“Having done this once, I don’t know if I’ll do it again,” Browne says. “I wouldn’t want to do the same thing over and over. . . . What I really want to do is make music I like, and that’s a full-time proposition.”