There was a huge uproar with the announcement that Bob Dylan thought that there has not been a good record made in the last 20 years. This caused many to dig out all their great records over the years in order to reassess and to reassure themselves and the
music world that the spoken truth of Dylan was in fact a myth. Although this ensured Dylan made the headlines throughout the world and was widely embraced as a prophetic statement by many aging folks who have been saying all along that ‘music wasn’t as good as it was in their day’. When the hoopla died down, I gave this some deep thought and I realised that what Mr Zimmerman meant in his own profound way was that the
sound quality of music which was blasting through everyone’s cool white headphones was in fact deteriorated noise, which was both false and with a revelatory nod to Bob, not worth anything. Now I am the first to admit that I was excited by the digital revolution and with the advent of the iPod generation assuring all music lovers that they too can have all their favourite 100 albums in the palm of their hands which can be manipulated and personalised to the extent that only the mini disc could only dream about (yes I too saw the false dawn with the mini disc revolution) But like all things great in life, sometimes something so great and life defining must pay a price. Like science can create unnatural long life, in turn it creates its own set of negative attributes like people feeling that life is solely to be prolonged as opposed to being lived to the fullest extent. Music too has suffered this crisis. As music has become more and more easily attainable and lifelong collections of music can be passed to passers by at the push of a button, the magic of music has in itself died. I recently woke up early one morning and felt the urge to binge on Joni Mitchell’s Blue album and wanted to feel the unique life affirming sound of Joni’s take on romance and felt saddened by the sound coming at me. The Joni I knew was only there in spirit and was somewhat lost in soul. The digital guess work, the loss of real resonance in her beautiful voice and the overall manipulation of the genuine organic sound sounded somewhat fake to me and through my desperation I went through my whole collection and was saddened to hear this was true for all my beloved artists from Wilson, Sly, Gaye, Lennon to my precious Stax collection. This made me want to delete all my songs and throw my iPod into the Mersey and go back to the Vinyl, cassette and even CD and rediscover what has apparently been missing since my investment in the iPod. The soul of music.As this epiphany struck me like lightening I started to feel very alone alongside the so called new generation of music fans. Many so called fans of music simply see music as something which is to added to their list of unlimited artists and songs like a stamp collection and are simply not learning to cherish their music. The disappointing realisation is that the majority of members of the iPod revolution simply do not care for the sound and even far worse cannot even tell the difference. The revolutionary development of the artistry of recording and sound creation which is real, organic and occasionally mind blowing simply does not matter anymore and it can threaten a situation where all the hard work is forgotten and the real artists implode as a whole because people care less and less. Imagine Brian Wilson being born 30 years later, would we ever have had a Pet Sounds with the love and attention which went into that magnificent album’s soundscape? It is a scary thought which makes me want to hold onto the LP for dear life. The digital revolution has inadvertently created a blood thirsty half baked fan who simply thrive on immediacy and can even listen to their music through their mobile phones on some new tinny robotic speakers . The genuine emotional attachments which generations of fans have adopted since music was available for people to hear in their private worlds is becoming simply artificial. With the convenient flick and twirl of a wheel people simply have less time to absorb and take in their music and I too am a victim of this cynicism. There was a time when an album was to be cherished for everything which came with it, a filler moment of sheer joy, astonishing artwork, liner notes. The album was created and developed to be an experience. Not simply slashed up and put in a popular order on iTunes with what other songs people bought. In the noughties I am afraid that the so called music revolution will create a breed of fan who simply have no time to appreciate the artistry and beauty of music but will have thumbs which are itching to skip and skip until their iPod’s are full of files which have no meaning.
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