Do you remember how you
used to listen to music, how you used to explore the Arts? Do you remember the
first piece of music you ever bought or even listened to? We live in an age in
which the way we do things is ever changing, inspired by the comfort and ease
at which the internet and computers give us access to the whole world, at the
simple push of a button. But has it all become too easy, and what has happened
to the music we all love and how it enters our lives now? It shapes our lives, as
ever it did, but it has taken a completely different route and its value would
seem to be rather different than it used to be. Only as individuals can we
decide how we prefer it, but regardless of age, we should all question the way
we consume things, or we are simply robotic where we should perhaps be more
human.
Vinyl, Beautiful Vinyl
The vinyl record isn't
just a way of listening to music, it is a way of living it, of breathing it,
and of becoming a part of the songs that we love, the ones that soundtrack our
lives, take us back in time, and reignite emotions and sensations that had long
been dormant. It isn't just an experiment in nostalgia either, as its
popularity, once on the wane, is growing again, perhaps as a reaction to the
current method of buying and listening to music. That brings us to the internet
and the downloading of music. What has become the easiest form of experiencing
music, surely in its history, is also destroying the soul of it, leaving some
pining for the days of yore, when you had to make a concerted effort to enable
yourself to be able to listen to the new music by your favourite band or
songwriter. Before, and at times it feels like an age ago already, people used
to go and queue for the new release by their top band. They woke up early,
walked down to the nearest record shop or got a bus into town and it created
excitement, sometimes even fervour. On the rare occasion, the biggest record
stores would open at midnight to start selling the release of some of the top
acts. Once the music had been purchased fans hurried home to play it as quickly
as they could. Music on vinyl records was listened to on a record player,
glaring out through speakers attached to the sound system, not through some
laptop computer on which a person runs the rest of their life - from work to
games, and internet browsing to watching DVD's and much more.
The way vinyl looks, with
the discernible grooves running around the 12-inch circular disc, the way it
feels and you need two hands to handle it, like it were some precious object
(which it is), and the way it sounds, from the first crackling notes, before
the actual music on side A finally commences, it was entirely magical. Yes, the
needle hits the groove and we are on a journey.
How much can you love
something if you don't have to make any effort to get it? Even with CD you had
to venture out to buy it in the shops, the experience of purchasing was the
same, and now even that has diminished into an almost bygone part of the whole
musical journey, a landscape shared between artist and fan.
Romanticism surrounds
vinyl, the best shops where historically such releases could be purchased and
the entire experience attached to the consumption of music in this way. It has
a history and was a profound way of experiencing music that still lingers on,
gaining popularity as it does again, in a time when it would seem to contradict
what is normal. Those shops have vanished. The high street looks
completely different. Gone are the second hand record stores (almost
completely) that once brought character to the streets of city centres, that
had a wide range of music buying fans browsing and departing shops with bags
containing music, or a vinyl in its lovely sleeve under the arm.
The giant companies have
swooped down and taken over the entire industry. The small shops and companies
were swallowed whole and the face of music has changed forever. Of course, as
with everything in this life, evolution is natural and cannot be denied, but the
changes are considered on a substantial scale to depict the soul of music having
been sucked into a vacuum, from which it will never return. It isn't that there
are other options; it is that this becomes the only option, leaving everything
that came before it for dust.
The Cassette Tape
The cassette tape, to a
lesser extent is also considered special and missed by some. In fact, the more
time that passes since the inevitable decline and death of this format of
music, the more it seems to become some iconic symbol of cool much as the vinyl
now is, it is one of the 'faces' of the soul of music. Memories attached to mix
tapes and vinyl sleeves must surely come flooding back to those upward of their
mid-twenties. Turning over the cassette tape, as with the vinyl, pulls you into
the world of the music yet further. It is an experience that is gone from the
way we buy music now, which has simply become too easy. The fun has been lost
along the way. With the tape you felt like you were important, as if you were a
part of it, you were intertwined with the music and the universe it created around
you. You would never reach the second half of the album without intervening and
taking some small part in the whole process. The tape sometimes got caught in a
walkman or player and the actual magnetic tape inside would become unravelled
and tangled and sometimes even destroyed. But this was a minor fault that also
made it feel real and human. The mechanical world has us on a leash now, rather
than us defining the world around and how we want to consume things. We still
have choices, but it's more necessary than ever to resist the juggernaut of commercial
sway, and in that contemplate what is easiest and what has genuine warmth and pleasure,
such as both cassette and vinyl.
Compact Disc
The compact disc was the
halfway house between the days of vinyl and downloading. It still involved the
whole experience attached to purchasing music and had the attractive package,
just in a smaller format than vinyl, but it held all the music on one side,
shifting the way we heard the contents into a new age. It replaced vinyl
really, though CD format is now suffering at the hands of downloading, while
somehow vinyl seems as important as it has in a long time.
The Digital Age
(downloading)
At the push of a button
now, or if you have pre-ordered an album it even occurs in your sleep (as
albums are released at midnight), downloading takes place. It’s easy, it’s time
and space efficient, and of course, I thoroughly enjoy the music I purchase, as
ever I did, I just no longer find satisfaction in the way I experience
attaining it. The endless trips to buy music were a part of it; they were what
gave it such additional euphoria. The lyrics and images on the large inner
sleeve that contained the vinyl record were amazing, sometimes even leaving a
fan spellbound as the music emerged from the speakers for the very first time.
Even cassette and CD had this tangible booklet accompanying the music. Now
though, any content supporting the music in booklet form comes as a PDF or
downloadable computer file. It’s the same information, the same music; it just
feels so completely different. Many things are easier these days than they have
ever been before, but it leads me to ask what is really best, what has the most
value as a consumer, as a fan, and as someone observing social and
technological evolution.
The first record you ever
bought or were given normally stands out, as being symbolic of an individual’s
beginning as a music fan (and buyer). It is the start of a journey. How many
people will so well remember a first download? Perhaps they will, but I feel
sure I am not the only one who feels that something tangible, an object in the
hands, feels far more real than anything else. I do not deny the convenience
and the digital age even fits in with my own current lifestyle, but if I really
had a choice I wouldn’t pick it over past formats even once.
In the end, and depending
on your age, having seen several different formats and styles of presentation
of music it is difficult not to question the changes and how we both benefit
and suffer as a consequence. In life changes are inevitable and often they are
made to make life easier and of course, unfortunately, for people to make mass
quantities of money. Music is something that should be created without
boundaries, and when it is a natural process I do not doubt this to be the
case. To believe that it is then released in a manner and via a format that
befits its contained hard work, creativity and talent would be possibly a
stretch too far to imagine, but nevertheless we can dream. It isn’t just music,
the world we live in has changed, but the way vinyl doesn't quite slip into the
pantheon of past formats of music shows that not everyone is satisfied with and
accepting of what we are told to consume. The vinyl is as beautiful an
invention in the history of music as perhaps anything else, and it deserves to
be heard, both as a viable and much-loved way of buying music and as a quality
object through which to hear our favourite artists.
by Dominic James Stevenson (October 5th, 2013)
No comments:
Post a Comment