Different levels of the devil's company
You can't turn on a computer these days without seeing some publication puking up yet another "People LOVE their iPods!" article, and the topics of "Full Albums vs. Songs" and "Digital vs. Tangible" have been well worn on this site, but the spirit is moving me today to talk about my love for the new world of digital music we live in, public interest be damned.
This one is all about some Playlist love. This past weekend, on train trips to and from Baltimore, I was reacquainted with my Five Star Listening playlist. Our story starts a couple of years ago when I first decided to digitize my music library, and, after a dozen or so CD-rips, it occurred to me in a dizzying, blissful realization that rating my music would let me create playlists for every decade, essentially creating my own, perfect radio stations. The music geek part of me (most of me, actually) was thrilled with this ability to create a musical elite within my own collection.
After a while, my poor little iPod couldn't take the strain of the entire music collection, so I had to start updating it with playlists. But which playlists? How do I decide what goes on and what doesn't? And so was born the Five Star Listening playlist, which is almost too potent to listen to in large doses. Every song is incredible, either being a song that I've loved or just a song that was a huge part of my life at some point or another, even if it isn't now (see: Williams, Dar and Doctors, Spin). On the train from Baltimore back to DC, this served me up "Ponderosa", "The Boy With The Arab Strap", "Blue Lines", "So In Love", "Never Ever", "Is She Really Going Out With Him" and "Best Imitation of Myself". Every song would just excite me more, reminding me of a road trip I took with my sister recently when we put on this playlist and I would yell out, "I LOVE this song!!" at the beginning of every song. It never got unfunny. To me, anyway.
So say what you want about digital music, about losing the tangible aspects of CDs and vinyl, about losing the artistic statement of The Album. This is the way I like to digest music, with variety and amazing, orgasmic, never-ending quality.
Five Star Listening, I love you.
12 comments:
well, it's not ALL iPod luv out there:
Apple's hot gadget has its detractors
and so the debate begins...
BTW, I still love my ~1500 song iPod - sorta for the same reason you mention here - it's only filled with the songs that I REALLY like, so on shuffle (which is usually how I roll on a road trip), the chances of hitting a song I love is pretty high. Just sayin'.
Yeah, I've seen a lot of the iPod hating. It's just pure 100% backlash. It has nothing to do with anything except exactly what that English idiot in the article was saying: that it pissed him off that people were talking about it so much. It's nothing more than "everyone else loves it, so I'm going to hate it."
As far as any of the other mp3 players out there, I've yet to see one that's as small in size but big in hard drive space as the iPod. It's a superior product, as far as I've seen. And it's really more iTunes than my iPod that I love anyway.
Give me a Dell DJ over an iPod anyday. Works better, looks better, imho. And MusicMatch seems just as good as iTunes.
I guess if I walked or metro'd to work I'd have more of a use for one, but like that person in the article, I really don't want to have one more thing to carry around. 'Course, I am addicted to XM Radio. Maybe once they come up with a cell phone/XM Radio/non-Apple mp3 player/PDA/sunglasses all in one package, I'll reconsider.
As for the backlash, I'd say a majority of the people who own Apple products do so simply out of backlash for Microsoft, so there's bound to be some going the other way.
As for the backlash, I'd say a majority of the people who own Apple products do so simply out of backlash for Microsoft, so there's bound to be some going the other way.
Man, you tryin' to start a fight?! ;) Them's fightin' words to some I would think.
who, me?! ;)
A lot of us learned computers on Mac. As a matter of fact, I only switched to PCs in the late '90's because they were cheaper. Apple's resurgence has to do with the fact that they decided to focus on making the media parts of the computer simple and easy, and they also made their computers look nice, which is easy to ridicule, but it's also the first time that a computer company made a design decision that said, "Computers are becoming central to people's lives and should have both design and function."
iTunes was the first music software that didn't make me crazy. I used Real Jukebox for a while, switched to Music Match because I hated Real so much, and then hated Music Match even more and just quit using either of them. Maybe Music Match has improved a lot in the last couple years, but I felt sufficiently burned enough to not even want to try. iTunes works great, the iPod works great and is easy to use and looks really good, AND they're constantly improving it.
I don't mind people just wanting to look into other products besides the most popular ones, but with the iPod--as with anything else when someone uses this argument--it's stupid to reject something simply on the grounds that everyone else uses it, and that all those people are just brainwashed sheep.
I agree, although it also doesn't make sense to choose something just because everyone else uses it. Even if U2 says you should. Blockbuster has more customers than Netflix; that doesn't mean they're necessarily better.
That being said, I think there are valid reasons why the iPod is so dominant (first to market, dedicated iTunes, those iPod jukebox parties you've written about, etc.). I think it's a quality product, just not the best option available anymore.
I like Macs because that's what all the good guys use in movies. Bad guys use PC's.
Actually, I don't really have any love for Macs anymore - but that's probably because I've been using a PC for so long (and the software that I use the most doesn't play on the Mac - which is ironic since it is a graphic-intensive mapping software). Oh well. I love the iPod though - and iTunes - it's so damn easy to use and organize your music with...and play music remotely with. Plus, they seem to be really on top of adding new features - like linking to podcasts and such.
Actually, I think that lots of other people (especially your friends) using something electronic is a good reason to choose it. It's a big reason why I switched to PC and why I switched back to Mac: because I knew people who could hook me up with software and give me tips, tricks and trouble-shooting on how to use it.
If your mp3 player goes out to the ledge and threatens to jump and you don't know how to talk it down, I have plenty of people who'll know what to do if it's an iPod, but no one who'll know what to do with the Dell. You're screwed, Scott! Your precious little Dell mp3 player is going to be scattered all over the streets of Baltimore!
Not so fast. The Dell has an aluminum casing, unlike that cheap white plastic crap used to make iPods. Not only will it take a beating, it doesn't look like it was made by Playskool. ;)
my ipod mini has an aluminum casing, and it's green - looks like it was made by hasbro.
and apparently, I might have bought the last iPod mini ever made... oh well.
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