We have gone from a full house to a kid-less house, at least for one night. Pam took Andrew down I88 today and returned him to Onondaga Dorm at Binghamton U this afternoon.
Erin, meanwhile, has learned that many social and networking events for Law School occur on Thursday night. So she has remained in Albany, had dinner, and gone out. So for now, I fill up a playlist on MusicMatch Jukebox and crank up the computer speakers….Such a change from 20 years ago. Then, I would have put an album on the turntable and tried to write in a paper journal. That could last the length of one album side, or about 20 minutes. A turntable, with a needle, connected to a 20-watt-per-channel Technics receiver, and an Onkyo cassette tape deck. The receiver still serves, tied to a 5-CD Panasonic changer we got as a Christmas present, 1989. I get the turntable out every couple of years just to play an album that doesn't seem to exist beyond vinyl; the cassette player gave up its mechanical parts long ago.
I wonder if the music recording has degraded in any way through all this electronic transference?
2 comments:
Hey Dave,
I was just thinking about this the other day. I was by no means around for the big vinyl scene, but I do remember my tapes. I can remember listening to the few, my favorites over and over again. It got to the point where the order was important. I could hear the notes for the next song as the current song was ending. An album was a whole, a unit. And I loved them for that. Great albums got rewarded because they were good units. The second biggest downside to the new mp3 players is listening to the songs from an artist alphabetically. (Or randomly, but really is that any better?) I do not believe that you will find 'alphabetically' in the rock n'roll dictionary. However I think the biggest downside to digital music is the availability. And I don't necessarily mean the illegal stuff. I used to get a new album once or twice a month. That is a pittance compared with the service I belong to now which floods you with 90 songs a month. All that music and not enough time in the day to listen to it. A cliche, but becoming more true each year. My standard for an album used to be listening to it completely four times before passing judgement. Now I am just lucky to make it through to the letter 'z'. Am I complaining, no I don't think so. But I thought your comment was interesting. Is good music becoming diluted by the availability of quantity and crap?
I don't know.
Hey Dave,
That was me Matthew.
Forgot to put my name at the end.
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