There [Was] Always Something There To Remind Me
Posted by anastasia on 02-25-2009
Last night I caught this "tweet" from Zadi Diaz, the amazing vlogger behind Epic Fu.
I remember my first album (embarrassingly, it was Menudo), but not my first download. Do you?
It made me think about how the web and digital music has both opened up music discovery, and yet how we may have lost something in the process. The first album I owned that I remember owning was "Grease" (the movie soundtrack) when I was around 9. I must have looked at the movie stills laid out like photos from the Rydell High School yearbook inside the album cover hundreds of times as I listened to and sang the songs over and over again. I loved Danny, hated Sandy, but more just because I loved Danny. There was something about having physical music whether it was an album that opened up like "Grease" or even tape covers and, of course, mixed tape covers that our friends made us, that is vanishing in these "wired" times.
I have the same feeling about The Kindle vs. books. Last night in my writing group, an older woman brought in a beloved children's book by E.E. Cummings. The cover was blue and faded and it had the look and feel of a book that was held and read over and over. I'm sure I sound like a total luddite right now, but I feel like having something tactile to hold onto and remember like a book cover or album art is part of the experience of reading or listening to music. It's what has fueled the trend of younger people collecting vinyl and why I don't think teens will embrace the Kindle, or at least not yet. We may be heading into a future where all of these media artifacts will be "collectibles," and the experience of reading or listening digitally may mean we read or listen to more but remember less.
February 26th, 2009 at 7:27 am
When people buy an album on iTunes, they don't get all the photos and information about which musicians played on each song as if they bought the vinyl-record or CD.
They could if iTunes changed its policy and included supporting files with that material.
The current system is unfair to musicians who aren't getting credit when the iTunes album only has the name of the main artist.
The answer isn't a return to vinyl-records or CDs, but for iTunes to start regarding their version as the real thing, and including photos and musician information accordingly.