Music and MySpace

[DroppinScience]

Here's an interesting little column from AllMusic.com about the worries that MySpace could pose for the appreciation of music:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=ADFEAEE4791ADE46A87220D0802A42CFB566E600CD57 F28B13214475D4BA25458C047AAF5FFA8481F1AF2BE720F3B3 2FA5450ED7D5EC56FCDA2A3A3788E7AC633B2E2B7B&sql=61::6;NP

I don't know if it was the anticipation of new music or the actual experience of searching shelves and stacks of albums that I liked better, but when I was growing up, getting a new tape was one of the best things that could happen to me. I would save up my allowance -- which I think was a dollar a week -- until I had enough for my next purchase, which mathematically, minus trips to the corner store for Faygo and baseball cards, evened out to about one new cassette every four to five months. But better than actually buying the album were those months in between, those months where I would dedicate myself to learning every song by heart, memorizing vocal inflections, chord changes, and riffs, and studying liner notes with a devotedness and intensity that I think surprised my parents. And so though my current tastes may have changed (I don't believe, for example, and probably fortunately, I would run to pick up a new Ace of Base album with the same zeal that found me panting, dollar bills in hand, in the record store to get my copy of The Sign), there are a number of albums from those days that I can still recite from front to back and still kind of love because of that: August and Everything After, Very Necessary, Dookie. There is a dedication that I, and thousands and thousands of other people who grew up similarly, have to these bands from my youth, a dedication whose memory can be triggered as easily by the smell of the plastic case, a flash of the cover art, as it could be by the first note of the seventh song, the drum and bass breakdown in the closer...

Thoughts? (Particularly FunkyHiFi, a-z, etc.)

[Documad]

While we're waiting to hear from the experts:

I am befuddled at her waxing nostalgic over a CD jewelcase. The packaging on those things has always been horseshit.

I suspect that her real problem is that she now has a job and other obligations, and so she can't listen to music for as many hours a day as she used to. That's my problem.

[DroppinScience]

I am befuddled at her waxing nostalgic over a CD jewelcase. The packaging on those things has always been horseshit.

It's the age she grew up under. Vinyl wasn't regarded in the same way back then (early '90s) as it was back in its heyday or even now ( as something retro and/or nostalgic).

[Documad]

I know, but how can anyone get excited over the album cover art on a CD? Seriously. No one treasures a plastic box--muchless an army of thousands and thousands.

You can raise an interesting question about why some people lose interest in music as they grow older, but I didn't believe her little story. Her writing style really bugged me. Sorry.

[Drederick Tatum]

I have zero nostalgia for CDs. their wackness and the cost over here of LP collecting has been one of the reasons I've shifted almost entirely to mp3s. a cassette comeback, on the other hand, is something I could get down with. especially if they had Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em...

[FunkyHiFi]

Whew that's some deep stuff.
We are running the imminent risk of making absolutely everything around us disposable, we are running the risk of oversaturating ourselves to the point that we feel and hear and understand nothing, that our attentions wander on a whim, a blog, a 15-second clip, we are running the risk of numbing ourselves so that the opinions of those middlemen — the record labels and scouts and publicists and critics — can seep into our gluttonous minds without fear of being stopped or filtered by our own ability to discernI agree with this.

I'm no philosopher so this may not come out right, but here goes: in the past, for a person to attain something of value, they had to work for it. That's just the way it was. I do "X" thing and you give me "Z" product; I cut up wood & swing a hammer and in a week I make a table for myself. Now after generations of engineers & inventors have worked their asses off, we're reaping the rewards of all their sweat. Pretty cool......but as the article's author said herself their is an unexpected downside to this semi-utopia we have now. People nowadays are losing their appreciation for many things that took much work to create, in this case, a piece of music (and don't kid yourself: putting just one truly good song takes a LOT of work). Helping this along are many short-sighted and/or plain unethical corporations using sneaky marketing techniques who keep pushing the attitude that only the very newest stuff is any good & if you don't own it, you're not quite as good a human being as the people who do.

And since so many people take music from the Internet but don't get the info booklet with those files, they miss a source of info about that music i.e. who else is in the band, who produced the album, who engieered it, who drew the cover art, and on and on. They miss out on all the contributions of all those other humans who helped create that piece of art (though we all know not ALL music qualifies for that title :D), IMO another reason music has become to so many people just like a piece of favorite gum: they chew it for awhile then spit it in the trash. :(

And the very nature of digital music i.e. a formless file on a hard drive or memory chip also helps to take away the value of music.

Lastly, another thing I've noticed is that as more and more people get used to the latest flavor-of-the-month (music, clothes, etc) certain corporations take advantage of that - very possibly the same corporations that helped to "grow" that shallow attitude in the first place - and put out cheap crap that fits right into that attitude: "Yea, this music/t-shirt/dvd player/etc is a piece of crap, but hey, there will be a new one out next month. Then I'll buy that one, and then the next one and the next one..........


On a side note:
the focus being on the number of people as opposed to actual relationshipsThis aspect of Myspace I don't like very much at all. IMO seeing people almost in competitions to see how many "friends" they can sign up really dilutes the meaning of what a TRUE friend is all about. It takes work & committment to make a true friend - clicking on an icon is not the same thing and means about as much.

* this message is being typed on a five year old Compaq using Windows ME, a 633mHz processor, a 15GB hard drive (@60% full) and 64MB of RAM. For *my* purposes it works pefectly fine (I don't do gaming or download movies or music). The only thing it won't do (starting just this year) is certain videos that use Windows Media Player v.10 and that new Quicktime HD format, both of which are still quite rare. But everything else works as good as my buddy's new $1,000 HP laptop, just a little slower.

[FunkyHiFi]

their wacknessWhat does that mean? CDs are old fashioned? They're too big maybe?

[FunkyHiFi]

Speaking of cassettes......

"A Question about the SMELL of Warner Bros. clear cassettes from the 80's." (http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=95898)

Their cassettes really did have a sweet & rather fruity smell to them (I bought lots of them for my car system - for the music not the smell ;)).

[FunkyHiFi]

:confused: Guess I wrote another "thread killer" post....

Just wanted to add that my above post concerned more casual music fans, since obviously for people that *really* like music, they will like it no matter what form it takes.

[DroppinScience]

:confused: Guess I wrote another "thread killer" post....

Just wanted to add that my above post concerned more casual music fans, since obviously for people that *really* like music, they will like it no matter what form it takes.

No no, you didn't kill it. You gave the type of response that I was hoping for when I created this thread.

So I thank you. (y)

[yeahwho]

This just in, Universal suing MySpace (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/1310AP_MySpace_Universal.html)

Universal Music Group on Friday sued MySpace.com, claiming the online social-networking hub illegally encourages its users to share music and music videos on the site without permission.

In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, Universal Music contends MySpace, a unit of News Corp., attempts to shield itself from liability by requiring users agree to grant the Web site a license to publish the content they upload to the site. Users, however, have no such authority over works they don't own.

The Web site also "encourages, facilitates and participates in the unauthorized reproduction, adaptation, distribution and public performance," according to the suit.

In the complaint, Universal singles out features on the Web site that enable users to save copies of videos to their profile pages or share them with others on the site.

Universal Music, a unit of Paris-based Vivendi SA and the world's largest recording company, is home to recording artists such as U2, The Killers and Kanye West.

Oh the troubles a monolithic integrated circuit can cause. If only we could've stayed vinyl forever.

[TAL]

but when I was growing up, getting a new tape was one of the best things that could happen to me.

I never understood why people bought original tapes.

[Scot Free]

I'm 34 yrs old.
I relate to what youre saying, but...try looking at it like this.
The quicker the search is for a good song or artist, and as resources (ie. cyberspace) open new doors to do so, the "quality" of music should get "better". There just isn't enough room for crap anymore, nor the time and money spent on searching and purchasing it. This is a good thing...no?
As for the good ol' days, well...we must move on.
I forget who said it but....
"Embrace the unknown with a cheer."
Stay positive,
AaronP

[abcdefz]

I'm no philosopher so this may not come out right, but here goes: in the past, for a person to attain something of value, they had to work for it. That's just the way it was. I do "X" thing and you give me "Z" product; I cut up wood & swing a hammer and in a week I make a table for myself. Now after generations of engineers & inventors have worked their asses off, we're reaping the rewards of all their sweat. Pretty cool......but as the article's author said herself their is an unexpected downside to this semi-utopia we have now. People nowadays are losing their appreciation for many things that took much work to create, in this case, a piece of music (and don't kid yourself: putting just one truly good song takes a LOT of work)....

And since so many people take music from the Internet but don't get the info booklet with those files, they miss a source of info about that music i.e. who else is in the band, who produced the album, who engieered it, who drew the cover art, and on and on. They miss out on all the contributions of all those other humans who helped create that piece of art (though we all know not ALL music qualifies for that title :D), IMO another reason music has become to so many people just like a piece of favorite gum: they chew it for awhile then spit it in the trash. :(

And the very nature of digital music i.e. a formless file on a hard drive or memory chip also helps to take away the value of music.




(y)

I know I was kind of stunned a few years back when I had occasion to hang out with high school kids how little they cared about recording artists, by and large. I met not a single one who was into music in that way, and these were run-of-the-mill kids.

I really think that this download culture really has undermined a real appreciation of music, overall. So basically I'm just repeating what others have said.

Was it better when albums were fetish objects?

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Music, like life, wasn't such a disposable thing back then.

[sercomdj01]

On itunes you can have a setting where your music collection is stacked like a cd shelf. With all the album covers you can add or download. And it looks awesome. So you still get the cover art, but don't have to have masses of CD's stacked up all over the place.

[Waus]

I think there's a lot of over-saturation with music now. I don't think that's a bad thing, but when music appreciators and record store junkies see other people listening to music like chewing gum (earlier example) they just get sick. Like a gourmet connoisseur watching someone buy a cheeseburger.

Being a real appreciator who's into digital formats and amassing large collections is a different thing from being a record collector I think. Appreciating and familiarizing yourself with music is almost a discipline instead of being something that happens out of necessity.

I think as far as cover art, the format of the CD etc. it's all just what the artist wants to put into it. Beck's last CD had the 4 separate foldouts of unique stickers, other bands have little mini-murals of tour photos...whatever. It's when a band has a lame photoshopped cover and one page of credits that pisses me off - not whether it's in a tape case, album jacket or CD booklet.

[saz]

i've never had one myself, but i can't be bothered to look at anyones myspace anymore, due to the really shitty music that always comes on really loud. then you're desperately trying to pause or stop it, but get distracted by the angels and fairies and shit flying around in the background.

[GreenEarthAl]

I'm pretty cool with everyone having the ability to produce and distribute music. There are very few major label artists that I bother with anymore, but I'm up on lots of local music. These days I can have an actual conversation with many of the singers and songwriters that I'm really into, and hell, sometimes I even get to perform with them. And record it and put it on my mySpace. Works for me.