music the great communicator...
I nipped out to the shops today to pick up the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album. Rubbish cover. Rubbish title. Great band. I've been listening to them now since they released "Mother's Milk" in 1989, and they just seem to have been getting better and better. I have a particular soft spot for "Blood Sugar Sex Magik", but "Californication" and "By The Way" are outstanding albums. The socks-on-cocks funk rock workouts have now almost completely gone, replaced with beautiful melodies and harmonies... and much though Flea may miss them, they're a much better band without them.
Anyway. That's not really what I wanted to talk about.
"By The Way" was released in 2002, and I played the CD to death. Literally. It is now so scratched and scuffed that it will not play in any CD player.... but because it died in the iPod era, I haven't missed it all. Why would I? I have it safely ripped and can listen to it anytime. I haven't even bothered to blow another copy onto a blank CD....but I have still got the original useless CD. It's in the box and on the shelf with the rest of my CDs. I don't really know why I've kept it.
Come to think of it, I don't really know why I still buy CDs at all. I've made a special trip to the shop today to buy an album on its day of release, and all I've done with the damn thing is take it home, pop it into my laptop, rip it and then put it away. It would have been far easier (and quicker) to have just downloaded the whole thing from iTunes. I download individual songs all the time (most recently "Back Again" by Boy Kill Boy), but to date I've only downloaded one complete album: "Minimum - Maximum" by Kraftwerk. To be honest, I only downloaded that because I heard that the CD was copy-protected, and as soon as the download completed, for some reason I felt the need to immediately copy the album onto CD.....
It's not as though I even particularly treasure having the CDs as a physical possession, and I don't spend hours poring over the booklets either. Part of me is a bit nervous about having my whole music collection on a computer, but that won't really wash as an excuse either, as I've got a back-up harddrive sat on my desk (chiefly because it would take hours and hours and hours to rip all of my CDs again).
Hmm.
Scott Walker's new album (11 years in the making!) also came out today.... but perhaps not surprisingly, the shop didn't have it.
Maybe I should download it.
As soon as I have a reliable way of listening to an iPod in the car, I'm not sure I'll ever buy a CD again.
...maybe.
Anyway. That's not really what I wanted to talk about.
"By The Way" was released in 2002, and I played the CD to death. Literally. It is now so scratched and scuffed that it will not play in any CD player.... but because it died in the iPod era, I haven't missed it all. Why would I? I have it safely ripped and can listen to it anytime. I haven't even bothered to blow another copy onto a blank CD....but I have still got the original useless CD. It's in the box and on the shelf with the rest of my CDs. I don't really know why I've kept it.
Come to think of it, I don't really know why I still buy CDs at all. I've made a special trip to the shop today to buy an album on its day of release, and all I've done with the damn thing is take it home, pop it into my laptop, rip it and then put it away. It would have been far easier (and quicker) to have just downloaded the whole thing from iTunes. I download individual songs all the time (most recently "Back Again" by Boy Kill Boy), but to date I've only downloaded one complete album: "Minimum - Maximum" by Kraftwerk. To be honest, I only downloaded that because I heard that the CD was copy-protected, and as soon as the download completed, for some reason I felt the need to immediately copy the album onto CD.....
It's not as though I even particularly treasure having the CDs as a physical possession, and I don't spend hours poring over the booklets either. Part of me is a bit nervous about having my whole music collection on a computer, but that won't really wash as an excuse either, as I've got a back-up harddrive sat on my desk (chiefly because it would take hours and hours and hours to rip all of my CDs again).
Hmm.
Scott Walker's new album (11 years in the making!) also came out today.... but perhaps not surprisingly, the shop didn't have it.
Maybe I should download it.
As soon as I have a reliable way of listening to an iPod in the car, I'm not sure I'll ever buy a CD again.
...maybe.
posted by swisslet @ 22:06
11 Comments:
At 11:05 pm,
Alecya G said…
There is something very comforting about having the CD *right there* isnt there? I don't have an Ipod, because I'm not that cool, of course, but i do have all mine ripped on my computer. Still, I like having the CD's. I do like the little booklets. A trivia hound like me loves things like that [and the commentaries on DVD's and footnotes in books]
I'd be sad if I didn't have my CD's...I can't say why....
At 11:43 pm,
Pynchon said…
Exactly the same as alecya. I'm an anorak. I read credits, sleeves, blurbs, etc. I would miss CD's.
At 10:12 am,
Robin said…
I'm quite happy having all my music on hard drive, but then I've never been much of a music geek. Almost as soon as I got a PC with a CD-rom, I had more CD's for the computer than music CD's.
I'm slowly working through the process of burning all my MP3's to DVD. Should take about 15 disks to clear off my music drive.
As for using your iPod in the car, have you seen those interesting little low-power FM transmitters that you can plug into your music player? There's a few of them on Ebay.
At 10:36 am,
Monsieur Hannard said…
Force of habit. Very powerful force, innit.
You know I think it has something to do with (for me anyway) being completely used to, accustomed to, and accepting of the fact that computers are temperamental buggers, liable to crash for no reason and just decide to forget/deny that a certain hard drive exists, or what-have-you.
I think they've moved on a bit now, but in our heads we're still in the windows 98 era, and are therefore driven subconsciously to make hard copies of everything, just in case.
yeah?
At 10:40 am,
Me said…
Although I've downloaded a few albums, I keep buying and prefer to own CDs, too. I'm the same with books - I have to buy them rather than borrow them. If I only have music files somewhere on my hardrive, I don't really feel like I've got a product. I like having the physical, tangible thing.
At 1:17 pm,
Poll Star said…
Hit a hobby horse of mine there mate. I download everything I possibly can-essentially for environmental reasons. When the option of download exists, the raw materials, production and transport of CDs is a unnecessary (dare I say self-indulgent) waste of the Earth's resources.
And if you do still want to read the leaflets, Amazon are increasingly including them as Adobe files in the download. I guess you could print them out, but don't expect an eco warrior to approve.
I pre-ordered the Chilis, but won't be able to download tonight, as I've been on the road. Should be cracking.
Steps off soap box......
At 4:38 pm,
-L said…
I received the i-trip to use my ipod in my car for Christmas. It's a great little toy! I was hesitant to get one but am quite glad I did. It has a few minor annoyances to be sure, but the upside of having my ipod tunes while I'm cruising is just too good. :) Only $20 or so!
At 7:49 pm,
Stef said…
I saw the review of the Scott Walker album in The Observer and thought of you.
They seem to like it.
I only buy mixed CDs these days, they never seem to break into tracks very well.
What bugs me about iTunes is that if you hard drive dies you have to buy them again...
I was going to get an iTrip but it turns out that my car has a 3.5mm jack in the glove box. Sorted!
At 10:32 am,
Kaptain Kobold said…
"I received the i-trip to use my ipod in my car for Christmas. "
A great device, with two snags here in the UK. Firstly I have found it quite tricky to find a clear bit of waveband to use it on (even after I downloaded the extended pre-sets from their website). Secondly, using one in the UK is illegal.
We used it in Oz, though, with no real problems.
Fortunately I have a cassette player in my car, so I use an adapter to play music from my iPod.
At 11:07 am,
swisslet said…
the iTrip is illegal according to the wireless broadcasting act of 1946 (or something) and the penalty if you are caught is a £10 fine.... so I'm not too worried about that.
More pertinent is the fact that:
1) I used to have one and I thought it was limited in its usage
and
2) They aren't compatible with the new iPod (which has had the top connector slot removed)
As I have had to replace my old iPod (which was nicked) with a video pod... this option isn't available to me now.
At 4:37 pm,
-L said…
Oh no! So what can you use with the new ipod then? Technology, oh how fast you change...
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