3.18.2004
RANDY DUCK DOWN!
Maybe it's because I came of record-buying age while living in Berkeley, or maybe it's because I lived in Berkeley so long ago that I still remember Alfred Grigsby and Prentice McGruder. Whatever it is, I'm beginning to feel more and more out of touch with how "today's youth" relate to objects of music. Album sleeves. Liner notes. Artwork. Pre-drag/click mixes. Heck, even jewel cases and digi-paks. Songs as pieces of (or metonyms for) entire albums vs. songs as free-floating and free-associating.
(Sidetrack: A friend in high school suggested how great it would be if we had a machine that could retrieve any song we wanted, any time. [It seemed outlandish at the time. This was back when email addresses were un-memorizable and dense with numerals.] After futher consideration, though, we concluded that there was some valor, or sublime thrill, to the pursuit of these things. His Elastica 7-inch wouldn't have been so special if there wasn't this sense of danger or potential loss; if we let our obsession with "Stutter" possess us, what would we do if/when the little record wore itself out? Or worse yet, got scratched up? No, we had to be careful. Ditto a brief fling with Suede's "Metal Mickey," which I could only hear by watching a Beta videotape of 120 Minutes. But I digress...)
My contrived ice-breaker earlier this semester involved asking students in my sections to offer the last piece of music they bought (NOT DOWNLOADED). A few students remembered buying a song or two on iTunes. One girl had bought some LPs after Elliott Smith's death. But most of them didn't remember the last time they had done anything approaching "buying" music. They scoffed! They laughed! They tsk'd and pfft'd me into old age.
I'm not sure any of this matters. I've downloaded stuff here and there, and I love a blog with a good free mix or MP3. Perhaps I'm investing too much touchy-feeliness in the process of obtaining music. Maybe I'm confusing artwork for art, or placing too much import on names on a piece of paper. I'm not sure what any of this means. I guess there are a few angles of this that strike me as strange.
If your relationship to music is defined by iTunes or desktop folders, I can really understand why you don't have hang-ups with limitless downloads. The trappings of the music (context, band photographs, liner-note Thank You's) aren't there and you might think in terms of "playlists" rather than "albums." Desire for music becomes a desire for raw materials, data -- I have 9000 MP3s on my iTunes and it's up to me to figure out what stories I want to tell myself, how I want to rearrange my loosies and strays. What's strange to me is that all of this has yet to destroy the notion of celebrity.
I need to go to sleep.
(Sidetrack: A friend in high school suggested how great it would be if we had a machine that could retrieve any song we wanted, any time. [It seemed outlandish at the time. This was back when email addresses were un-memorizable and dense with numerals.] After futher consideration, though, we concluded that there was some valor, or sublime thrill, to the pursuit of these things. His Elastica 7-inch wouldn't have been so special if there wasn't this sense of danger or potential loss; if we let our obsession with "Stutter" possess us, what would we do if/when the little record wore itself out? Or worse yet, got scratched up? No, we had to be careful. Ditto a brief fling with Suede's "Metal Mickey," which I could only hear by watching a Beta videotape of 120 Minutes. But I digress...)
My contrived ice-breaker earlier this semester involved asking students in my sections to offer the last piece of music they bought (NOT DOWNLOADED). A few students remembered buying a song or two on iTunes. One girl had bought some LPs after Elliott Smith's death. But most of them didn't remember the last time they had done anything approaching "buying" music. They scoffed! They laughed! They tsk'd and pfft'd me into old age.
I'm not sure any of this matters. I've downloaded stuff here and there, and I love a blog with a good free mix or MP3. Perhaps I'm investing too much touchy-feeliness in the process of obtaining music. Maybe I'm confusing artwork for art, or placing too much import on names on a piece of paper. I'm not sure what any of this means. I guess there are a few angles of this that strike me as strange.
If your relationship to music is defined by iTunes or desktop folders, I can really understand why you don't have hang-ups with limitless downloads. The trappings of the music (context, band photographs, liner-note Thank You's) aren't there and you might think in terms of "playlists" rather than "albums." Desire for music becomes a desire for raw materials, data -- I have 9000 MP3s on my iTunes and it's up to me to figure out what stories I want to tell myself, how I want to rearrange my loosies and strays. What's strange to me is that all of this has yet to destroy the notion of celebrity.
I need to go to sleep.
