Thursday, January 17, 2008

R.I.P., CD & LP?

Is the CD dead and buried? Ethnomusicologist, banjoist, and all around good guy Toby King, a friend of mine in New York, said to me once that the CD era was over several years ago. I found his pronouncement hard to take, given that I was and am a record collector and that annually (well, monthly, weekly, even daily perhaps) I purchase an impressive number of CDs. Worse, few people revere the LP anymore. The loss of the physical object as a medium is a difficult transition for me.

What's the big deal? Am I overreacting? Am I just a recording fetishist, unwilling to part with the physical object? Well, yes, I have sentimental attachment to them, and more for LP records than CDs. I remember the day in December of 1983, for example, that I bought Deep Purple's Machine Head at Musicland up at the Miller Hill Mall. Arriving home, I carefully slit the plastic and took the record out of the sleeve. I lifted the turntable lid and placed the LP on the platter. Leaning in, holding my breath, I lifted the tone arm and gently set the needle on the edge of the record with that barely perceptible "fffffft–ssssssss," and POW! that great opening riff of "Highway Star" cannoned across the room. It was a violent and glorious punch in the gut.

With a CD, the drawer opens, you drop the CD in, you hit PLAY and, Bob's your uncle, the music starts. Easy, yes, but you can do it while drinking a soda or talking on the phone, maybe even at the same time. It doesn't require you to engage. With an LP, setting the needle down requires your attention. It makes you quietly focus. Maybe not for very long, but long enough that you're open to it and the sound from that wonderful vibrating diamond needle has you hooked. Putting the needle to wax is a personal connection. The record album (and the 45 rpm single) experience may not be as tactile as live music, but it is more concrete than any CD or iPod could be.

Twenty years ago, the CD had finally begun to outnumber LPs at the record shop. Some, including me, hated to hear the death knell of the iconic phonograph. The LP had such an impressive canvas. Through the mid-to late twentieth century the album cover had become an established contemporary art. On CD, it's hard to appreciate the cover of Led Zeppelin III when you can't shift the inner picture disc, much less make out the iconography on the cover (at 25% its original size). CDs also come in easily breakable plastic cases. If the case cover doesn't break, the tines in the middle probably will and then the CD always falls out.

Nonetheless, the exciting new technology won out over the old. The industry promised a basically indestructible item with crystal clear sound. The cost to the consumer was greater, but the advantage of the technology was apparently worth the price. Never mind that the CD production was one-third the cost of LP production ($1.00 for the LP material and pressing cost, about $0.35 for the CD), the 50% increase in price was what the market would bear. Never mind that we now know that the CD is certainly destructible. Never mind that digital recording has undergone several improvements that obligated some old records to be re-remastered to CD two or even three times over the years (each time with the promise, "Okay, now we've got it, THIS is the best you'll ever hear!"). CDs do NOT yet, in my opinion, come close to the smooth warmth of analog recordings. I'll take the dusty sound of a record any day over brittle, sharp, digital sound.

Fifteen years ago, e-mail and the web came into vogue. Ten years ago it became a normal part of communication and interaction for many businesses and homes. In the last decade, networking has transitioned from telephone and ethernet modems to wireless communication, making the computer useful anytime and virtually anywhere. Computers gradually lowered our defenses to the point that, today, almost all of our work, communication, socialization, and entertainment is done via some form of electronic device.

During all this, six years ago, the iPod was born. Irrevocably, everything in music changed.

Suddenly everybody was ripping their CDs to their computers, and transferring the music to that sexy little gadget, which holds thousands of songs. Also, six years ago, Apple and some other companies made it possible to download music at a competitive price. No longer did you need to rip a CD, because the CD was irrelevant. It was an unnecessary step between the manufacturer and your computer/iPod. The age of the hard copy was over. Today the new iPods can even download the music directly, making your computer irrelevant too. (Take THAT, Bill Gates!)

So, why do I still want those LPs and CDs on my shelves? Because I believe there is still a need for a hard copy. I've lost data on computers; they crash, files get accidentally deleted, a magnet or an EM storm wanders by and goodbye, information. It may be easy and less cluttered, but electronic storage is very fragile. I don't care if it's better for the environment because it saves on materials. I don't care if it saves space, I don't care that it is easy to use. Sure, I've got an iPod. I've got over 9,000 songs on it, and I admit I sure can't carry 700 LPs around with me to have the same number of songs at my fingertips. But I sure wish I could, because someday that little iPod is going to break down and then 9,000 songs will evaporate into thin air like a Saharan mirage.

Remember the big blackout a few summers ago that shut down the northeastern US? I was sitting in the Columbia University music library in New York City. Other people were typing notes into their computers. Then poof! the power went down. Everyone grimaced and grumbled; nothing more they could do (at least after their battery inevitably ran down). But I, with my trusty fountain pen and notebook, sat in a comfy chair in the afternoon sunlight and kept right on working. The point is, let's not put all our eggs in the electronic basket. Certainly, the virtual world is an exciting place, but if we never walk around outside of it then the real world will run us over time and time again.

So, tell your kids to turn off the Nintendo Wii and send them outside to play in the snow. Get out your old LPs (or if you must, CDs), put them on and relax in a comfy chair under a blanket with a cup of tea. Take a slow deep breath. Your psyche will thank you.

[My wife just pointed out the irony that this essay is posted electronically on a blog. Despite the Luddite overtones of this essay, I'm not saying technology should be discarded, merely that it should not be our only resource. - Chris]

2 comments:

Unknown said...

"Certainly, the virtual world is an exciting place, but if we never walk around outside of it then the real world will run us over time and time again."

Well said, sir. That's all I've got for now. :)

-bea

Anonymous said...

You write very well.