Victory
Among the things that Polly Jean Harvey has taught me: why I prefer digital to music to CDs.
Thirteen years ago, I did a study abroad in London for one reason: so that I could be around the London music scene that I could only read about in the imported weeklies. At this time in my life, my musical world revolved around PJ Harvey's first two albums, and while I was there, I bought her Four-Track Demos album. This CD became one of the jewels of my collection since it had the sale price sticker still on it: £8.99. I had gone all the way across the Atlantic to get stickers like this, and I loved it.
But things changed, and a few years later, when I was broke and my Polly Jean fandom had waned, it didn't seem quite so cool. So I traded it in spite of the regret I felt.
Last night, I downloaded the Four-Track Demos album again, and thought about that £8.99 sticker again. I wished I hadn't been so stupid to trade away that CD, but then I was struck even harder by this thought: the ease at which you can get any album these days, and the way it's played back on a computer in which it looks exactly the same as anyone else has it has robbed music of those sentimental physical attachments. But that's exactly why I love it: I no longer have to worry about hanging on to CDs that I don't want anymore just because I have a sentimental attachment. It's very simply about the sounds and the sounds only. I'll miss that little sticker and the cool that it gave my CD collection, but I'll gladly give it up for a world in which all sentiment is attached to only the music and not the packaging.
2 comments:
13 years ago! yikes.
This past weekend I finally boxed up all my cd's after I realized that I NEVER access them since they are all burned onto my machine. I should probably sell/trade them, but I'm not ready (er, motivated) to do that yet. I love going to the record store and all, but aside from not needing a cd around, I mostly listen to radio via the internet, and when I hear a track I like, I can go get it with just a few clicks and seconds w/o investing in an entire album that I might not like most of the stuff on - pretty cool!
I'm still the flipside in this argument. I must admit that it does have a least a little to do with the enjoyment of the physical artifact (ie the package and the acquistion therof), but really for me it's much more about ritual. I just simply enjoy the process of playing an album on my stereo much more than I can imagine doing so using the computer. Even with airtunes, it's just not the same to me. That and that nagging knowledge that even if I can't always hear it, the sound quality of an mp3 is comprised at least on some level. CD's are clearly going the way of LP's though. It makes me sad.
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