I, like most people of my generation, am in love with music. Whether it's past or present, rock or opera, I can't think of a better way to spend time than to have a personal soundtrack for your thoughts handy. I remember as a young kid, listening to Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" on my first Sony, a hand held tape player with mono sound and a 4" speaker built in. I lugged it every where. Today I never leave the house without an Ipod. So much for Sony tape player walk-mans, or entertainment centers with the Hi-fidelity player (8-track) built into the craftsmanship. I remember the television I grew up with. A 27" RCA with speakers built into the side and it swiveled on a base, making the entire unit weigh near 400 lbs. Today's televisions are 3" thick at the center, and come with Ipod adapters built in to accommodate your musical needs.
Nowadays, tapes are non-existent, unless you live your weekends at yard sales and flea markets, searching for the rarest of bootlegs or live recordings. And I assume, if you find such a feat, that the recording is muffled or weathered, disappointing and leaving you feel molested. And music can be purchased by the song as well as by entire album, allowing the buyer to cherry picking their favorite songs, rather than enduring the albums of one-hit wonders. I am one of those types of buyers. I gave up on driving down to the local record store, and purchasing the almost extinct compact disc of the new album release of a favorite band.
When Napster came out, music began an aggressive change that turned the record industry into (insert favorite cliche' here). Gone are the "rare" recordings and live bootlegs. No more hard to get European recordings or half-way-across-the-globe festivals. Even U2 did a live show feed on YouTube the other night. It seems to me it's easier to find a rare track on the Internet, even if the recording is crummy, than it is to find Led Zeppelin 1 on vinyl in a popular record store, or Pink Floyd's Animals on CD. Log in to Itunes or Amazon, and the world's entire music catalog is available at your finger tips. And I love it!! I love the availability to new releases of my favorite bands while I'm at work. The ability to have a song in my head, and to log-in and purchase it a minute later is such a great feeling. I can take it home, never once dealing with tearing the plastic off the album, or driving to the record store to find it sold out. It's heart warming.
I can remember being in high school, listening to Soundgarden's "Superunknown" in my car for my entire senior year, not because I loved it, as I still do, but because it was in the tape player all the time, the others lost amid a mess of garbage and clothing. Not to mention friends with sticky hands. It's amazing how times changed. When I was in school (oh shit, I'm having one of those moments...) there were maybe 25 personal computers in the entire school. I took a typing class and we did it on the program BASIC. Now my computer at work is 240 Gig with 4 gig of RAM. I have 40 gig of music stored and that can play for over 24 days, without once repeating a song. Can you imagine lugging around that much music in records or tapes or Cd's? FUCK!
Now, because music is digital, it's not only easy to buy, it's easy to share. The kids who invented Napster, the music share community, it became a way for everyone to compare recordings and open up your senses to new music, such that you never would have heard before, thanks to the people who program radio stations. I haven't listened to the radio in ears out of choice. I just log on. And a lot of bands protest against these music sharing communities, but my man Trent Reznor says "People aren't stealing music to make money. They steal because they love music." Ain't that the truth.
I guess the point of all this is to give a little acknowledgment to what we as humans have been able to accomplish. We've come a long way since sticks and animal pelts. I think that electronic music, in the variety of options that are available for download, will have a better effect on our environment in the long run, and the feasability of avaiability makes music much more enjoyable in my opinion. I think I'll go get something new to add to my music arsenol for my way home. My life soundtrack.
Keep Rocking
-Johnny
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