Tuesday, February 12, 2013

The Evolution of Audiophilia


Years ago, we had records. ( I faintly remember 8 tracks, but oh that was a long time ago for this boy). I was small then, and the tape was slowly becoming popular. I can remember a time when the record store was still viable and people actually went there and hung out. Then, when tapes took over we all watched the tiny shiny frisbees slowly evolve.
I remember the first ‘studio pressing’ golden Compact Discs in the late 80’s. Now, even the CD has begun to be pushed out by the mp3 and online music stores with catalogs trillions deep.
Most of my CD collection has been ripped onto my hard drive along with entire collections from my wife and father in law. It’s vast, topping off at about 35,000 songs including audio books, 20,000 without counting the books.
The funny thing about my collection is that it is, in its entirety, made out of complete albums. Until the recent past holidays, I never bought just one song for ninety-nine cents.
I have always thought that a CD or album or tape or real-to-real or 8 track from an artist was created to tell a story of sorts. Like a book of poems, it was up to the listener to come up with the details, but the whole album was thoughtfully constructed with the listener in mind. Why not listen to the whole thing? Didn’t we owe it to ourselves to do just that, after spending about $10 on them?
Right, so you’re thinking ‘what about mix tapes?’. Well, once tapes got rolling, you could sit next to your boom box and start recording your favorite song when the DJ played it on the radio. Later boom boxes were manufactured with two tape players.  One would record while the other played. You could switch out one side all day and make various completely unique compilations for your GF or BF to be romantic, wild or just plain awesome.
You could copy your friend’s latest tape too. The one you couldn’t afford.
I remember one time, I made a copy of a friend’s Led Zeppelin IV tape and wore it out. Then made another copy.
Since cars didn’t typically have CD players in them,  you could record your favorite CDs on your HiFi and listen in the tape deck in your Bonneville or Le Baron.
So then cars upgraded to CD players and more recently auxiliary ports, for cable that go right to your smartphone or mp3 player. Now, our boys can jack into the car stereo system and play their favorite loud ‘Screamo’ or ‘Alternative’ rock. Since they were right on the fringe of CDs morphing out in favor of mp3s, It seems that all three boys still prefer to listen to an entire album, like my generation. However, it’s become obvious that most music consumers now only buy a single song from a artist that they like and have large collections made up of one shots, rather than whole studio productions. As I said, this was sort of taboo for me. Sure, I bought ‘singles’ from albums that were getting airplay but not released yet, just to tide me over, but like the ‘special features’ link on DVD’s they often only left you feeling agonizingly keen anticipation, rather than satisfaction.

The Rolling Stones Live at Leeds Roundhay Park, 1982

Which brings me to the point of this post. Just before Christmas, when Google Play was giving away a free ‘surprise item’ every day, I was able to get the Stones’ ‘Beast of Burden’ live from Leeds Roundhay Park from 1982. I love the Stones, and though I was pretty sure I didn’t have the cash to buy the whole album, I jumped on the free download in full swell of the Holiday Spirit.
So last week I was listening to The Story with Dick Gordon, from APM and heard the interview Dick had with Gregory Porter.
Porter has an amazingly anachronistic voice, and his band is very tight. I like Jazz, so I decided to check out some excerpts from his latest album, ‘Be Good’. Of course, I loved it.
So I hemmed and hawed over buying the whole album for 9.99, which is really quite reasonable. And for the first time in my audiophilia ridden life, I only bought three of the songs. Well, if we don’t evolve with the times, then we’ll be lost. As soon as I can afford it, though, I’ll buy the rest of the album.



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