For me it is great to see these guys debate because they really dig deep into the issue and normally disagree on one thing or another. This makes for entertaining viewing but also some really obscure and valid points. As I mentioned, the point that interested me the most was about justifying yourself as a serious music listener, put forward by Myke C-Town. I agree with him on this. Perhaps my view is partial due to the fact that I am an avid record collector, but I haven't always been. What I have come to discover through starting to buy records is that music is as much of a tangible media as it is intangible. Especially in regard to older music. I feel like another historical dimension has been added when I buy a record as a pose to downloading it and I somehow feel that much closer to unravelling what that particular artist is wanting to tell me. That for me is something worth pursuing. I agree with Myke in the fact that the transfer from physical to digital has diminished the value of music and its power to educate somewhat. In 2013, anyone can access pretty much any piece of music ever recorded through the click of a mouse. iTunes and similar platforms have made it almost too easy for consumers to get to the music they want, which could in turn cause ignorance as to the historical significance of the music.
Myke is right in saying that record shopping inspires face to face interaction between people with common interests, whether that be an artist, album, genre or just music as a whole. You can't put a price on that, can you? Buying a CD or record often inspires people to sit back and look at an album with a greater appreciation, seeing it as an artefact to be treated with respect rather than just an invisible file buried deep on a terabyte hard drive. Of course this is a generalistic view, there are more than a fair number of exceptions I'm sure but I am writing this on personal experience. Buying a physical album serves you up everything on a platter; the music, the album art, liner notes and most importantly, a memory. I don't think MP3's can do this in the same way.
Of course I must address digital music as a force for good too. Being a 19 year old University student I really don't have the money to buy 10 new records or CD's a week to serve my ever growing appetite for hearing new albums. Hence MP3's have affected my life in a big way over the past 2 years. My iPhone and Bose headphones make for a great listening set up in almost every situation. But I can admit that I listen to MP3's at the expense of getting the whole experience of an album sometimes. To combat this I will often research the album online and try to get everything I would get out of the physical copy, but it still isn't quite the same. Hence I will never get rid of my turntable.
I think my point runs in parallel to C Town's for the most part on this, it is more than okay to have a large collection of MP3's, but perhaps to have your whole collection stored in a folder on a computer diminishes part of how you remember the music. Is it okay to consider yourself well schooled in musical history if you only have MP3's? I don't know. I think it is certainly an advantage to have a physical collection but not essential, so long as you do your research. At the end of the day, it all comes down to our own circumstances and conveniences, but vinyl is by no means 'dead' and will always have something sentimental and spiritual to bring to the table. This is such a big conversation, I haven't even addressed the issues of sound quality or illegal downloading in this post. But those will have to wait.
Let me know what you think on this, either by commenting or over twitter @Dylan_Quotes. :-) Thanks for reading!
