17th
Will our iPods be the old vinyl collections of the future?
One of my favorite things growing up, especially in the 12 to 15 year-old range, was to rummage through my parents’ old vinyl LPs and EPs looking for music I liked. It’s how I discovered The Beatles, and subsequently nearly wore out our copy of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and learned that Bruce Springsteen was born to run. I had to replace the needle on my parents’ record player twice in my teens.
I was captivated by the smell, the look, the feel of these records. I could tell a lot by looking at those 12.375” square sleeves. By looking at the cover of “Rumors,” I could tell that Fleetwood Mac were clearly weirdoes with an affectation for scarves and bad hair (and, later, chicken fajitas).
While there are still vinyl records being pressed for those too-cool-by-half indie kids out there, you’d be hard pressed to find them outside of thrift stores or the few independent music retailers still left. And with music downloading growing at the rate it is - Apple is now the world’s largest music retailer - CDs are trending the same (read Mark Cuban’s blog post if you don’t believe me, and to read more about the digital monetization of music).
Instead of shelves or boxes full of vinyl sleeves and jewel cases in our living rooms and bedrooms, we have 4.5”-by-2.5” electronic devices and computers that store the totality of the soundtrack of our lives.
But this post isn’t about the merits of vinyl versus CD (or any other format), or the coldness of digital 1s and 0s that now represent music.
Rather, what does this shift mean for future teenagers looking through their parents’ old music collections like I did?
First, how are they going to look through these collections? Will we still be using iTunes or similar program 20 years from now? Will Mom and Dad still have the same music that they did in the past, or will they have junked it in the conversion to some other new, better format?
Let’s assume, though, that they’ll be using some sort of iTunes-like interface, and that the MP3s of today will still be useable. Sure, it’ll be easy to go through all of this music quickly, sample some tunes out, and see what one likes. I’ll save the discussion of whether MP3s have killed the album format for other writers.
What I worry most about are those visceral reactions I had as a kid, picking up an album sleeve. Looking at a small pixilated version of album artwork is not the same as having the genuine article in your hands. “Sgt. Pepper’s” doesn’t make as much sense (or at least doesn’t resonate as much) as a concept without that photo of John, Paul, George, and Ringo in those multi-colored military band uniforms, surrounded by those cutouts.
My point is not so much about artwork as it is about the process of discovery and curiosity that leads a kid to dig into boxes in the garage, find a bunch of old pieces of cardboard and plastic and slap them on a record player, not knowing quite what to expect to come out of the speakers. Call me nostalgic, but I hope that’s not lost in our new digital age.
