From the Quaternions Sent Tue, Mar 2nd 1999, 07:47
Please don't let this thread degenerate, it's intelligent so far, just make your points, be polite, etc etc. Don't rehash old ground... Re: what ninjeff said... Record shopping is cool, and will keep plenty of people buying records. But, if you live anywhere without good record shops, your alternatives are basically online ordering, buying whatever CDs your local store happens to get in, or getting MP3s. The first option loses the appeal of physicality. if you're not a dj, might as well get an MP3 if you're not an audiophile. the second option is unappealing in its inflexibility if you live an area with crappy stores, or if you realize that the CD just isn't very satisfying. it's just another imperfect digital technology, eminently disposable, replaced by the next thing, like MP3s. Records are the last analog sound technology of any note, and as such they aren't made obsolete by MP3s in the same way CDs are. Getting MP3s is a pain, but i know that at school I have a direct connection that'll get me music in a few minutes. That's nice and convenient, and might overpower the urge to go shopping if i could actually find decent MP3s online. Beyond all of that, I think Walter Benjamin is pertinent right now. In "Art in the Age of mechanical reproduction," he talked about nthe process whereby art (and by extension, music), becomes less about the object, and more about the product. a very select group of people used to go to classical concerts in tuxes, applauded at all the right moments, and were generally forced to fetishize many things extraneous to the music. With mechanical reproduction, benjamin argues, art is given to the masses free of the pretense and pomp of high culture. You go to a noisy show in dirty clothes, listen to a CD in your own home on the cheap. Now, with digital reproduction, the object is further discarded, because it becomes irrelevant. Yeah, the physical presence of a record is nice, but unless you're a DJ, it's in many ways extraneous to the music itself. (And, to all you small labels who try to create fetish object limited editions, Benjamin would say you're living in the past.) Of course, blah blah blah limited editions are nice,a;bum art is nice, fetishes are nice, makes people happy, etc, we've been over it already. But to resist MP3s means that you should acknowledge how much you're fetishizing technology, not music. This all only becomes relevant once MP3 technology becomes more accessible, etc. You know the drill and all the counter-arguments that can be made. Enough outta me Sam