n/p kind of like spitting — no continent
yesterday, when i was at my favorite local record store with maartje, i proudly declared i would never buy an album on cd again. ever. what a brave statement that was; when i think back, i guess i have bought a meager two compact discs over the last 18 months, so saying that i could do without those occasional romantic outbursts altogether, didn't seem like that big a deal.
i remember that when i was 17, all of my hard earned cash was spent at music machine's, the record store i hadn't seen the interior of for over a year up until yesterday. i've had periods that i just didn't have the bankroll to treat myself to a new release every now and then, hell, these periods sometimes lasted ages. so, depending on the severeness of my sometimes pathetic financial situation, i would actually sit out the time without any new purchases, anxiously awaiting new payrolls, economies to revive from recessions and sometimes, when i was really, really desperate, plain miracles. eventually, my prayers would be met most of the time. the exact day i actually had some money to spend again, i would come home with all those albums i'd been kept from for oh so long, much to my mother's disgust.
it hadn't occured to me until yesterday, but when i quit my job over at vodafone in august 2003, i subsequently quit my loyal basket case record store freak outs as well. the main reason, of course: the internet.
over the years i've gone from “albums, albums, albums! original albums!” to “i download music to pick up new bands, it's amazing” to “i download just to get my fix, man, i'm poor”. for me, the extra value of actually owning an original disc in whatever case, accompanied by a proper booklet and inlay, just doesn't cut it anymore. i'm mostly behind my computer anyway and since they finetuned the mp3 technology with the lame-alt standards a long time ago, i'm happy with files that sound just like the real thing (and i like to call myself a wannabe audiophile, mind you). these days i find myself tracking release group release dates as opposed to the actual album release dates themselves. it's gone from bad to worse since i got myself an ipod.
i'm actually one of those persons who claim the ipod (and especially the itunes store) to be the best thing that has happened to music since thomas edison invented the phonograph and that french engineering nerd came up with the concept of stereophony. sure, i'm an apple fanboy, so i'm prejudiced as fuck, but i find it all the more intriguing that a computer manufacturer (a computer manufacturer, for god's sake!) had to come up with a concept that would actually turn this whole piracy problem record companies were facing (and fighting against) into a profitable business. sales of legal downloads are going through the roof, and finally even publishers are now starting to see that there actually is a huge online music economy out there. that said, i shamefully have to admit that i've actually shopped at the itunes store just once; when they released an itunes exclusive death cab for cutie ep that i couldn't get anywhere else anyway.
i've had it with the compact disc. last year i got two thursday vinyl records from ebay; i don't know why, i guess i thought it'd be a cool idea to have those two albums, which i really like, on a giant medium. i didn't even have a turntable that actually worked (my old crappy one broke down ages ago), but i considered them nice collectibles anyway. you won't hear me claiming vinyl to be the only true medium to date, that compact discs sound harsh and cold, that they have no heart. sure, i secretly believe it's remotely true, but i wasn't into it for the trend. most people who claim to have found the mighty nirvana of sound reproduction with their oh so vintage vinyl don't even have the right equipment to prove that point.
“your phono pre-stage is crap. you hear me, crap!”
“and so are your cartridge and stylus.”
“and your consumer speakers.”
“i mean, like.. headphone amp, anybody?”
“heh. you actually call those headphones?”
“what do you mean, i have never heard blonde on blonde before?”
(this reminds me: i'd love to have my own record store. i would spend my days recording mix tapes and setting up top five song lists for mere irrelevant purposes (top five songs i like hearing when i'm taking a shit, top five recording artists that i should be allowed to execute personally, bonnie tyler and david hasselhoff not included), bitching at customers for no good reason, bitching at customers for all the good reasons (“hello. do you happen to have i just called to say i love you by stevie wonder?”), not selling them that rare 12 inch that they're eager to get their hands on, 'cause quite frankly, they just wouldn't appreciate it as much as a true snobbish elitist like me would. and everyday when i got home, i'd lock myself up with my gigantic record collection, so i could categorize them alphabetically, by genre, or chronologically. and when i was completely out of ways to categorize them in, i would come up with a way to categorize them that makes no sense whatsoever. good lord, i so have to watch high fidelity again.)
retrospectively, i remember vinyl revords having a certain magic around them, a feeling that i've never had when i put a compact disc in my cd player: the idea that you're actually playing records. sure, you have to flip it over somewhat halfway the album, the crackles sound a little weird now we're used to tracks not being noisy, but isn't that just half the fun? doesn't that gigantic sleeve show you the cover the way it was supposed to, in all its glory? doesn't it actually give you the feeling that you really own that album?
besides, in pure dynamics they can't be beat. me lovesh dynamicsh.
so two weeks ago i bought myself a rock solid turntable. i don't have a proper cartridge yet. i don't have a proper phono pre-amp yet. i still haven't even properly measured and adjusted the hardware itself, so that it actually plays the way it should play. but it's a start.
so there i was: in my favorite record store, with my favorite girl, looking at probably my favorite album ever. on vinyl. having just promised myself i would never buy an album on compact disc again, it felt like this would be the perfect start. it sounded masterful, i'd start collecting all the albums that i truly love on vinyl right here (three down, a quadrillion to go), the rest i would just download. since i showed heart, i could even pump up the frequency with which i was used to pirating shitloads of other music, blatantly disregarding copyright notices, to an extent that even my internet service provider would eventually get sick of it. “seriously. dude. bandwidth.”
“i love this elliott smith album, maartje. i have it already, but i feel like buying this.”
“yeah. i know you do.”
:)
does the rant stop here? heh, not exactly. by a matter of freak coincidence, i was at satisfaction records today. school was out early, and well, i just figured it'd be cool to pay my second favorite record store a visit as well, being around and all. just for old time's sake.
they were playing the new mars volta album, which i forgot came out today. goddamnit.