So I was driving to work this morning, listening to music on my iPod, which was set to shuffle. The song "The Eraser" from Thom Yorke’s solo album came on and I got to thinking about how I never really gave the album a fair spin, not because I didn’t like it, but more than likely because something else came along.
My musical wantonness just doesn’t give Thom his fair due. After all, “OK Computer,� an unlikely breakup recovery album my senior year of high school, rescued me from a lifetime of rock mediocrity. To this day I get chills at the opening riff for “Let Down� and the creepy “Climbing Up the Walls.� Thankfully the album has managed to transcend its role during my days eating ice cream and crying. Years later I’m still gleaning new information and ideas from it.
There truly is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to music these days. And I’m not just talking about the amount of good music out there. I’m speaking of how easy it is to get truckloads of music, relatively cheap at everywhere from Target to Wal-Mart, to iTunes, to getting burned copies of discs from friends. If I hear of a new artist I can easily look up their page on MySpace and sample a couple of tracks from their latest album, and if I find it even slightly interesting download the album all within the time it takes Jack McCoy to make his closing argument on “Law and Order.�
The convenience has allowed me to meet many new friends — Beirut, Regina Spektor, Neko Case— artists I potentially wouldn’t have listened to before for fear I was wasting my money. At the same time, the quality of my friendships have changed.
Its like we’re cabin-mates at summer camp. We swear we’ll never lose touch because we made each other laugh, and we've gotten each other through homesickness and we learned how to make the perfect toasted marshmallow together. But then we get home and there are other friends, and school and life and we lose touch. If we’d only had a couple more weeks we could’ve cemented our relationship into a forever sort of thing. But there are new songs on the horizon.
The first album I ever owned was “August and Everything After,� on cassette. I was 13. When the cassette developed high-pitched squeals during “Sullivan Street,� I got it on CD. And now it’s on my iPod. It’s a lifelong friend.
While I know I’ll always have surface relationships, probably with Justin Timberlake and “SexyBack,� and the Dixie Chicks and “Not Ready to Make Nice,� I don’t want my musical future to consist entirely of half-hearted acquaintances. Today’s climate of everything new, everything now, doesn’t bode well for long-term friendships in music. But there is certainly plenty of music out there worth the time investment.
This year, my New Year’s Resolution is to buy less music, but make more friends.
I got an iPod for christmas (join the club, right?) and it is both cool, and a little sad - for exactly the reasons you posted.
When muso kids have crushes on each other nowadays, do they send each other iTunes playlists? Do they just blog about it and link to a bit torrent with the Cure's entire discography in MP3? Which reminds me, there's a an old mixtape I really would like to dig up - maybe I can purchase all the songs on iTunes and recreate "Zorak's Revenge" on my shiny new Apple device.
Check out Saul Williams' last album. It's really, really good. If you want a track or two as examples, I would say "Black Stacey" and "List of Demands" are the catchiest of the bunch. But the album as a whole is pretty good. He's got a new one coming out this Spring, produced by Trent Reznor (who also has an album out in April. No US tour til 2008 though, yargh!)
I wonder how long the term "album" will stick around. It's technically already a misnomer, calling a CD an album. Radiohead still do a pretty good job of making the purchase of a physical collection of songs worthwhile (I admit it, I own the special editions of the last three albums. CDs.) When I have time, I do still enjoy putting a good album on and listening the whole way through.
Also, check out Macha's self-titled debut, and the follow-up "See It Another Way." Two of my favorite 'albums,' thankfully ripped to MP3 before my excessive playing scratched up the CDs.
If you're looking for good music, email me. It's out there, it just takes a little digging.