Listening to music
The downside to downloading is that there’s nothing physical. You get bits stored on your computer, loaded into your iPod and that’s it. All of which is wonderful and transforming of course. In the past year I’ve downloaded thousands of songs from bands and singers I’d never heard, or only heard of, or always wanted to hear, or heard once but never again. And they’re nicely stored on the iPod, available whenever I want. So without that I’d probably be in a kind of bored state with music, ruled by inertia and lack of discretionary income.
But there’s nothing to show for it. I don’t have my albums neatly stacked in the living room anymore, in a state between alphabeticised and randomised, waiting for someone to flick through, oohhing and aahhing.
There was, once, for a 17 year old boy, a definite sexiness in carrying a Patti Smith album home. In wondering just how to hold it so the right people might notice. In pouring over the liner notes.
Maybe that’s just changed though? I guess that might be it. Maybe last.fm is the equivalent in a digital world of carrying that album home on the train and sitting it right at the front of your collection.