Re: (idm) MP3/consumer fetish (long )

From the Quaternions
Sent Tue, Mar 2nd 1999, 20:47

I agree with you completely. I'm just saying that the material format
(audiophile questions aside, which have been dealt with adequately.  MP3
sucks.  Vinyl sucks.  CD sucks.  We know...)
shouldn't matter if what you're after is music.  MP3 is no better than
vinyl, except that it opens the way to greater mass availability, once
everybody has a computer and a fast net connection, blah blah blah
utopianism blah blah blah
techno futurism.... It just might be an easier way to
get music. I think it's a little silly that listening options are limited.
Obviously, listen to VVM 7 inches if you like them.  But the fact that
they're only released with bizarre packaging and people scramble to get
them before the supply runs out is indicative of how much we still
fetishize the packaging over the
actual music. It's remniscent of a certain kind of elitism that just
doesn't have to exist any more, because we have the means to get rid of
it. That's all I'm saying. Listen to what you want!
        And regarding Benjamin... He's so damn cool because he wrote
around 1920.  he's fucking old skool.

Sam
> or buy vinyl. *If* this is your opinion, I don't think it's true. Many
> people, even on this list,
> support and buy vinyl and are *not* djs. Also, I don't think that merely
> avoiding MP3, that
> I am *resisting* MP3, I just don't need it. You have said, "to resist MP3s
> means that you
> should acknowledge how much you're fetishizing technology, not music."
> When I listen to
> music, I listen to *music*.  A VVM 7" in all of it's material fetishist
> glory on colored vinyl
> and hand packaging does'nt mean *shit* if the music's bad. True? I don't
> care if it's on *8 track*, Sam.
> I have a brain enough to discard all pomo theory as to where I fit into the
> social scheme of music appreciation
> and make my own decisions. Even with the going to a classical music concert
> in a tux comment, I can make the choice of whether to listen to the record,
> the CD,the tape, a live concert, or even perhaps, an MP3?
> Maybe the music consumer who makes his/her own mind up is the *real* dying
> breed.