PopMatters @ 10

From CD to MP3: The Degradation of Music Curating

[20 October 2009]

So much of our musical landscape has changed. Rarely do I invite someone over to listen to an album over coffee, rarely do I make a mix CD for a friend, and what used to be an exciting outing to an independent music store has increasingly become a distant memory, as these autonomous ventures continue to fold

By Omar Kholeif

In 1999, on the eve of PopMatters’ inception, I was an angst-ridden teenager, who had a tendency for ditching classes only to sit in the toilet reading back issues of Rolling Stone. By the end of the decade, my love for grunge music had sent me searching through expanses that spanned Punk & New Wave to classic rock, gospel, and soul.

But despite my obsession with the retrospective milieu, I was always conscious that I was, of all things, a product of the ‘90s. As such, the world mythologized in the pages of music magazines about vinyl records, played on analogue players was something that I believed, belonged to my forefathers. Certainly, the rickety sound of a spindle scratching the surface of an old record was romantic, and the large artwork was appealing—but nevertheless, I was a staunch believer in the compact disc (CD). With its plastic shell, artwork, and liner notes, the CD had all the positive bearings of an old gramophone disc, except they were portable. This isn’t too mention, the shimmering and ‘untouchable’, optical surface intrinsic to every CD—for a music aficionado like myself there was something quixotic about this; it felt like music was sacred. It was something worth protecting.

Through the years, and wherever I was geographically there was this extent need within me to maintain my music collection. If an artist were to release a new album, whether I liked it or not, I had to own it. These were then piled up alphabetically as ‘room art’—symbolic markers of a collective identity. At the time, when my friends and I would visit each other, we could quickly decipher from each other’s CD collections which person would get along with whom best.  It didn’t seem snooty or materialistic; it was just a practicality. Lifelong friendships were born out of mutual passion or devotion to an artist. I remember when I was approaching the end of high school, when I stumbled across the 1990 re-release of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours amongst my friend’s things: we locked eyes and in a hyperrealist moment of epiphany, I realized then that we would be friends for the rest of our lives.

Retrospectively, I have broken my back trying to come to terms with the social shift that has made music collecting a matter of inconsequence. But when one starts to consider the most basic practicalities, a lot of answers seem self-evident. In the past, we (the fans) were left waiting on edge, hoping that our favorite music videos would be played on MTV, penciling in release dates into our jotters and racing physically to record stores to purchase them. Before CD ripping software became the norm, friends would lend each other CDs, with the expectation that if the friend liked it, they too would ‘go out’ and ‘buy it’. The sheer physicality of the experience denotes a commitment, one that is no longer present in the minds of trigger-happy, mouse-clicking teenagers today. As well, the sheer fact that CDs were relatively expensive (in comparison to cassette tapes), increasingly meant that a lot of sweat, blood, and tears (or for youngsters) patience, had to go into curating one’s personal library. Accordingly, attaining new albums was like acquiring a piece of art. One had to wait for the funding to be in place, before waiting for clearance, and finally, delivery.

I remember vividly getting my first weekend job babysitting to save up specifically for the 1995 release of the Velvet Underground’s commemorative Peel Slowly and See box set.  I was living in Saudi Arabia at that time in a small conservative enclave, where albums were banned from being sold if the artwork was offensive. The only Velvet Underground album that the local megastore sold was the The Velvet Underground and Nico, but the manager of the music shop at the time (a friend of my mother’s) had pre-ordered the Velvet’s compilation specifically for me. I remember the zealous smile that came over my face when I realized how envious my best friend would be of this fact. I had already started to plan my evenings in, where I imagined I would have listening parties for my privileged cohorts wherein, I would unleash the clambering sound of Lou Reed and his band of misfits, when my haphazard ‘connection’ at the store fell through. The manager was transferred. No one knew about my pre-order, nor were they going to make any effort to redeem my broken heart.

With this anecdote, I return to the contemporary world of 2009.  It is hardly fair to suggest that “the music [has] died”, but it has certainly become a far more free-flowing construct—one that is less connected to personal identity. When I survey my two teenage brothers and their relationship to music for instance, I often find myself baffled. Unlike me, they have had the luxury of growing up with musical instruments, and the benefit of private music tuition. However, neither of them physically owns more than ten CDs. Instead, when they hear a song (often on a TV advert, i.e. Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten“ c/o MTV’s The Hills), the pair of them will sit in their rooms on their computers, and watch the video on YouTube on loop, alone. As such, the collective experience of sharing music—the notion that it brings people together—is automatically voided.

Subsequently, if the boys can be bothered, they will download the song off of iTunes (rarely the album, might I add), and they will store it onto their MP3 devices and listen to it for a number of days before it dissipates from their consciousness. To them, it is but a blip on a magnanimous hard drive that they lack any physical appreciation for. When I used to collect CDs, I tended to believe that the music industry functioned as a cyclical meritocracy. I saved my money, I purchased a CD, and in my mind, a percentage went to the artist (so that they could carry on making exciting music) and a portion went to the record label (to allow them to develop and discover new talent).

Certainly, this amorous view bypasses the villainous perception of the money-hungry music executive, who has often been used as pawn by peer-to-peer aficionados, who believe that music should be a ‘free’ public commodity. But, the point remains pertinent, and that is that by purchasing music, I believed I was ‘taking part’ in a whole that was greater than myself.

Of course, I may judge my younger siblings and their friends, but as of late, I too have found myself succumbing to the whim of the MP3 format, and it’s degradation of musical curating. Despite my initial skepticism, I realized that it would be difficult to transport my CDs as I moved, now that my collection had spiraled into the thousands. For practicality’s sake, during college, I transferred all of my CDs to my computer. Soon enough, I had started to forget about the actual ‘contents’ of my collection. Without the physical act, of bending down and searching for an album amongst a stack of shelves, I grew lazy, only moving my cursor to the list of my most played tracks—rarely stepping out with the confines of my own imagination.

Two years after the switch to MP3, I had stopped buying CDs completely. I convinced myself that they were bulky and unnecessary, not to mention more expensive than MP3s, which were heavily discounted if you compared ‘album prices’. Nowadays, I sit at my laptop watching TV, and I find myself downloading up to ten albums at a time. More often than not, the majority of these new releases will slip out of my consciousness, and will go unheard for months. For in the past there were lyric sheets, liner notes, and artwork that personalized the experience of purchasing a record. Not to mention, the sheer expense suggested that thoughtful consideration went into the actual purchase. Today, the sheer immediacy makes them inconsequential. Indeed, if I were to survey the entire contents of my iPod, which is full at 80 GB (with another 40 GB on my laptop), I can shamefully say that I listen to no more than five percent of my entire collection.

Specifically as well, the appreciation of albums had disintegrated as well. I no longer remember album release dates, artwork, and on the whole, albums tend to be less synonymous with ‘events’ in my daily life. Of course, with the advent of album artwork on video iPods, as well as lyric storage capacities, and so forth—the evolving MP3 format is growing to encompass many of the things that were ‘lost’ in the conversion from CD. Without a doubt, this is a wonderful thing, but so much of our musical landscape has changed. Rarely do I invite someone over to listen to an album over coffee, rarely do I make a mix CD for a friend, and what used to be an exciting outing to an independent music store has increasingly become a distant memory, as these autonomous ventures continue to fold.

Perhaps the saddest thing for me personally is that my once carefully curated music collection, no longer defines me. Seldom, does one ever ask if they can survey the contents of my iPod. In fact, not once in the last four years, has a person flinched at the sight of the 1000 strong CD collection that sits in my living room today. Ten years ago, before the advent of MP3s, it certainly made in impact. Arguably, the way that we appreciate, collect and share music has changed drastically over the last decade. It is less ritualistic, and more about immediate gratification. But to every generalization, there is an exception. It is no secret for example that for the hordes of MP3 guzzling fanatics out there, there are enthusiasts out there pioneering the independent record store, and traditional dissemination formats. However, regardless of these retrospective advances, one thing is clear, my relationship with music has forever changed.

 
Bookmark and Share

PopMatters @ 10

Omar Kholeif is a UK-based writer, and film programmer. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, PopMatters, Film International, The Pink News Whats On Stage, Scope, and The Advocate, to name but a few. His dramatic writing has been produced professionally for the stage, and his short films have been developed through the UK Film Council. Omar is a graduate of the University of Glasgow (Film & Television Studies and Politics) & Screen Academy Scotland, and is an Inspire candidate at the Royal College of Art, London and FACT (The Foundation For Art and Creative Technology), Liverpool. He is also a contributor to Document (http://www.docfilmfest.org.uk), the only UK documentary film festival, with a human rights focus, based at the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) in Glasgow, Scotland.

To find out more, or to contact the author, please visit http://www.everythingok.co.uk

Comments

My personal experience with the ‘sharing of music’ mentioned in the article, actually has more to do with music cassettes than CDs. Of course, they were easier to copy and duplicate and even more portable and durable than Compact Discs. And, let’s face it, as a kid you didn’t pay too much attention to ‘sound quality’ anyway.

When CDs came around, they were, to me, a rather useless trinket. Yes, better sound quality but that sharing and copying thing was gone forever.
Of course, it came back later when cd burners became common and cheap, but I was 14 by that time and MP3s were already on the market.

Only recently I’ve started uncovering the vinyl area, rummaging through my dad’s collection and ogling the huge and beautiful front covers (Roger Dean.). To me, it almost seems like any ‘serious’ listener between 20 and 30, should take those exact steps back in time. Starting with cassettes, then CDs, Mp3s and then, finally, back to the vinyls.

Comment by Damien from Rome — October 20, 2009 @ 12:46 am

Being considerably older than 30-something, my music collection started out on vinyl. When recordable CDs became commonplace, I burned my vinyl to CDs.

Now, my entire collection is in MP3 format. I no longer own any physical music media. The vinyl album or the CD was never the important thing to me anyway, because while I venerate certain artists, keeping each album as a unified, whole work of art was never important to me. I don’t care who you are; I’m not going to like every track on your album, so I shouldn’t have to listen to it.

No matter what the format, though, I never did really share my music with my friends. It has almost always been a solitary experience, so converting to MP3 hasn’t affected that. (If anything, having it more readily available, and having a Bose dock, means I share music MORE often than before.)

What HAS changed for me is that now, finally, I listen to every single song in my collection. I kept only my favorite tracks from each album, and grouped them into playlists of 50 tracks each on my iPod. I methodically rotate among these playlists.

As a result, I value my music collection now more than I ever did. Each track is a precious jewel to me, and I’d have to say that my music collection is my most prized possession. I’m glad it’s not taking up space on shelf after shelf - it doesn’t have to be moved or dusted, and I don’t have to worry about it being stolen or destroyed in some catastrophe.

Life is good on MP3s.

Comment by Karen from WA state, USA — October 20, 2009 @ 5:07 am

That is a brilliant article. You are right on so many points that it makes me feel sad for the whole music world.
As far as I am concerned, I keep on buying CD’s (and even vinyls) for my personal collection. I also use an Ipod but I love this physical form of the music. And even if I share music mostly in mp3 format with friends, I like to invite them at my place just to listen to the new records I’ve bought.

Comment by music mp3 from Grenoble (France) — October 20, 2009 @ 10:26 am

It’s unbelievable how PopMatters and Digital Music News are saying almost the same things on the same day. And, we, Bad Panda Records started yesterday, having in common more or less the same idea.

Comment by Claudio from Seydisfjordur — October 20, 2009 @ 10:35 am

“I find myself downloading up to ten albums at a time”

Ack! Of course you aren’t excited about music. How could you be? I was in a similar situation a number of years ago and was able to fall back in love with music.

(In order to avoid being an over-generalizing jerk, I will speak only from my experiences. I acknowledge that it could just be me, but from what you described, it sounds like you are in a similar boat)

I remember indulging in the peer-to-peer networks. There were oodles of music: generic pop; exquisite, out-of-print albums; ultra-rare bootlegs; German singles with bonus tracks; etc. It was so exciting. At first, I thought nothing of right-clicking and “downloading folder,” anticipating that I would give it a spin at some point in the future. After a while, I would just download for the sake of downloading. Some downloads would sit for a long time unheard, and when I finally got around to them, I would give them only a cursory listen and delete them. I started thinking about that and felt really guilty: if I glanced at an art gallery’s portrait top-to-bottom and made a rash keep-or-toss decision, it would be me missing out. I realized that the connection I had made with albums like the Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” or Bill Frisell’s “Ghost Town” came from my repeated, active listens. When I put them on, I wasn’t just soundtracking a commute or a surfing session; I was sitting around and actively listening to them. It helped that I was younger and strapped for cash: I really didn’t have that many albums to listen to.

I realized that I was the problem. Downloading mp3s may have made it very convenient to obtain music but it didn’t mean it was suddenly easier to understand the art there. So, I made a decision. I stopped downloading. It was lonely at first, too. I fell out of trends, couldn’t talk about the latest bands, I kinda missed keeping up with popular opinion. However, I started reassessing albums that had previously become just-another-track-in-the-random-playlist. Artists became more important to me again, and I started anticipating new releases, thinking about what they would sound like. I wondered about musical decisions made on the albums, how things were recorded or produced or imagined or written or whatever. In turn, I made music exciting for myself again. The restrictions I placed upon myself may have been entirely artificial, but the value I gained was easily worth it.

I think making the connection can be even harder in today’s environment. Pages of blogs are filled with new music, and I’m willing to bet that most of that music is rewarding. However, you can’t keep up. You can’t enjoy all the new music that’s out there. You’ll end up skimming the surface of a lot and never making that deeper connection, which it sounds like you used to do. You will lose. So, stop! Choose any music act. Maybe they are new, maybe it was one of the ten albums you downloaded, maybe they are some obscure act from the 70s, it doesn’t matter. Listen to that album multiple times. Listen to the music, the lyrics, how the words are sung, listen with headphones and then on your hifi setup and then your crappy old boombox. Listen in the car, at home, at work. The effort that you put into it will be rewarded back to you tenfold. Get another one of their albums, do the same thing, compare the two. Just put effort back into the process.

I hope that you can rediscover music.

Comment by Jonny B from MD — October 20, 2009 @ 12:01 pm

I am also from a generation that grew up on vinyl.  My earliest memory of a particular song is from the 70s in southern California - “Instant Karma” over the loudspeaker at a swap meet.

I am also from a generation that shared music with recordable cassette tapes and 8-track cartridge tapes.  Usually only a few people had an particular album and most everyone else had tape recordings.  Common low-end stereos were one-piece unit with a turntable and an 8-track recorder and/or a cassette recorder.

By the time that I was in high school and interested in music, I was living in rural middle Georgia.  My musical tastes were different enough that I couldn’t record it from other people’s albums and had to special order most of my music record.

These days, I almost always buy complete albums.  I guess that I been conditioned to do that.

I exercise by riding my bike on a trainer, listening to my iPod.  The length of my ride is determined by the length of the albums that I choose to listen to.

Some albums are just collections of songs, but other albums are complete works and should be listened to as such, even if it means listening to songs that you don’t really like.  It is respecting the vision of the artist.

Comment by Alan from The Other Washington — October 20, 2009 @ 1:16 pm

Nice article.  Despite being a few years older, my situation is pretty similar to yours.  I developed a huge CD collection, and even when Napster was taking off, I really only used it to try new stuff before buying the CD (and to get the rare stuff another commenter mentions). 
However, around 2000, I bought a few used vinyl records in a flea market.  I had been thinking about buying records for a while, but I was afraid it would quickly blossom into an obsession on par with my CD collection.
As it turns out, I was correct.  I started by buying old used records for cheap, but then there were certain albums that I had on CD that I wanted to buy on vinyl - Beatles, Stones, Dylan, etc.  Then a couple years later, vinyl started becoming more prevalent and more and more of the new albums I wanted to buy were on vinyl.  Now I have a collection of about 2,000 records and maybe buy 1-2 CDs a year.
Besides the artwork and what I feel to be better sound quality, vinyl allows for the more intimate listening experience you claim to be lacking now.  You have to get up and change sides on the record, you can’t skip songs (which only rarely - think Revolution 9 - is a nuisance) and while you can play the music in the background, you’re more aware that it’s there.  Plus most new records also come with the digital, so when you are on the go, you can take your music with you.  I thought the fixation I had on music would wane as I got older, but records have made me as obsessed as ever.

Comment by Josh B from Los Angeles — October 20, 2009 @ 3:00 pm

One of my most cherished memories was the first time I took my girlfriend back to mine.  As soon as we were in the door we dropped the pretense that we had ‘come to watch a dvd’ & raced to the bedroom but as soon as she stepped into the room she gasped ‘holy shit’ and stopped in front of my wall of cds.  Then she spent the next five minutes running her finger over the indexes & exploring the shelves and discussing music with me before we returned the earlier matter.  It couldn’t have been more perfect.

But I can completely relate, my cd collection had defined not only my self-image but the image all of my friends had of me from the age of 16 to the age of 24, now it doesn’t mean shit.  I was physically seperated from my CD collection when I moved to London last year, my CD collection is sitting in eight seperate boxes in the roof of my parent’s house. 

I can’t help but imagine that when I finally move back to Australia, when I bring those boxes into a new apartment & prepare to unpack them, what I’m going to feel is not nostalgia & the joy of reunion, but astonishment at the anachronism of it all.  That’s fucking depressing.  Really fucking depressing.

Comment by Pete from London — October 22, 2009 @ 5:06 am

— PopMatters sponsor —

What a beautifully sad article.  Unfortunately I can empathise too closely and whilst reminiscing about my own journey I too have succumbed to instant gratification over hard work and great reward.  Thank you for the memories and for jolting me to re-evaluate music’s importance.

Comment by John from Melbourne — October 22, 2009 @ 7:33 pm

@ Jonny B, that sounds really cool, I’ve been considering something similar for a while.  Can you tell me some more details?  Like, how many albums did you keep, and how much of your listening from your d-day forward was listening to stuff you already had vs. new stuff, and how did you find new music?

My plan, which I’m not really sure about, is to delete everything except twenty albums, and then just buy whole albums… In digital or physical I’m not really sure because I move around a lot and don’t like having a whole lot of stuff.

One problem is I don’t have a radio so it’s hard to find new music, although I listen to lastfm.com when I can afford to stream.

Anyway, I really want to do something similar because I feel so detached from the music I listen to.  Downloading (pirating) an album and then never listening to it makes me feel distracted and hopeless.  I’d appreciate anything more you could tell me about how it went for you.

Comment by Harry from Christchurch — October 26, 2009 @ 9:55 pm

I find myself going back to vinyl somewhat and I still buy cd’s. It is something very sterile about mp3’s. If you only listen to the hits of any artist you are missing 95-to-99 percent of what’s out there. You find many, many gems on the album/cd. Way more than just the “hits”. In this age of information, to me, mp3’s are for the short attention span crew, not real or true music fans.

Comment by Mack from Baltimore — November 2, 2009 @ 7:06 pm

Add a comment

Please enter your name and a valid email address. Your email address will not be displayed. It is required only to prevent comment spam.

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?