If I were to go out today and buy the latest iPhone, the one with a 32gb capacity, I could travel with an untold amount of music files; days and days worth in fact. The mobile ubiquity of music [NB: not as in the cloud] creates a post-music dilemma for me – i.e, too much choice. As a voracious collector of songs in digital format, as opposed to vinyl albums the tactile carrier of choice for me, I stress out over what songs to play. I could use the shuffle option, I know, but then I worry about what’s coming next and how it might affect the atmosphere or my mood. [As I write this I am listening to the Fever Ray album, the intensity and mood of which seems ominously perfect for writing this piece.]
I suspect the iPhone as iPod is killing music.
I can’t listen to music when I am reading a book – on the other hand the New York Times on Sunday can be accompanied by any music, although I rule out jazz in an effort to avoid becoming a living cliché. [Philosophical note re that last phrase to be explored later - Life is already too dull to fall into that trap.] What this ruminating boils down to is that I realize I’m living in a personal post-music period. Note that I say personal, I don’t expect anyone to follow me here; I also never watch television and I’ll bet that many thousands of readers of this blog do.
I love a good book.
My faith in a hardback book of roughly 350 pages is unshakeable. Unlike music the book author’s territory is ours to share and inhabit, to walk around, upon and through, allowing us to imagine beyond the words and also allowing us to add our own images – what Simon Schama might call Landscape And Memory
Roy Christopher, writer and thinker, reaches out to folks like myself to supply him with our reading lists for his annual Summer Reading List, a list that is gently highbrow without that word’s accompanying haughtiness. It’s a delight for me to not only be involved but to see what folks such as David Silver, professor of media studies at the University of San Francisco, or Joshua Gunn are reading.
The books that I list below makes me realize that I am dwelling on apocalypse; all of them are 9/11 related and one of them, John Gray’s “Al Qaeda And What It Means To Be Modern” published in 2002, is so terrifyingly prescient about last year’s global economic collapse that it borders on the uncanny – I’m not joking when I say that Marx and Engels need to be re-read and studied hard for clues to the current financial meltdown.
Try to enjoy your summer.
Falling Man by Don DeLillo
Al Qaeda And What It Means To Be Modern by John Gray
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel
Netherland (Vintage Contemporaries)
Related Posts: Cormac wins the Pulitzer, The Long Tail in the top 100, Amy Sedaris.
Dave,
I would recommend this book regarding your abundance of choice dilemma. http://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-Why-More-Less/dp/0060005696/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247956597&sr=8-1
@jeremypair
July 18th, 2009 at 3:38 pmNo surprise that we’re talking about post-music concepts here. I for one don’t think the iPhone is doing it. Rather the fact that music bombards us now everywhere we go. Starbucks, commercials, the grocery store, you almost can’t get away from it now.
It’s not a matter of going home and turning on the stereo to hear something after a long day of silence and office chatter anymore…now it’s more like going home to get some quiet.
July 19th, 2009 at 10:00 amJeremy, yes, I’ve read that one. Joe, your comment made me re-think the idea of mobile ubiquity. Having your music in the cloud makes sense from an ease of access POV but that ubiquity definitely takes the edge of the experience of savoring music. Like slow food we need slow music and we have it, it’s called a vinyl album..
July 19th, 2009 at 10:36 amDave, I’m with you on the personal-post-music thing (and I still just have my regular old iPod!). Sometimes I feel like there is just too much music out there. But upon thinking a little deeper, I’ve begun to think that what all this is pointing to is the fact that music, nowadays, is not really content to just be recorded audio. Great music is more than that too me. Its what you said about books; its “territory is ours to share and inhabit, to walk around, upon and through, allowing us to imagine beyond the words and also allowing us to add our own images.” – My favorite musicians provide this for me, and they generally do so OUTSIDE the boundaries of what was picked up on microphone. For some, its about personality. The weird faux-insane characters that Tom Waits or Jack White make of themselves says as much about their art as their songs do. The conceptual and artistic-crossover projects that the Flaming Lips or NIN have gotten involved in keep me interested. I don’t think the iphone or ipod, or the ubiquity of music is destroying its value – I think its just making us realize that music is and should be more than recorded audio. Its about context – not just content.
July 19th, 2009 at 8:57 pmWhat I love about vinyl is that it forces you to DO things–you have to get up and turn it over to side two, which in my case often means having another look at the album cover/gatefold.
Oh, the gatefold sleeve, what a brilliant design…who can forget the first time they opened up Kiss Alive 2? Sure, it’s a studio-tweezed faker of a live record (or am I thinking of a different famous live Kiss record with a massive fan pedigree?) but that gatefold made you feel like you were THERE.
July 20th, 2009 at 6:37 amI have a piece in the works about the personal-post-music thing (if Dave’ll ever send me the “Clutter of Pop” zine so I can cite you).
No matter how you take it in, it’s about a closer connection with your music, a deeper experience. I don’t want to get up and flip the record, but I do want a more intimate relationship with my culture. That’s about quality over quantity, not format or content or context.
By the way, thanks for the kind mention, Dave.
July 20th, 2009 at 3:41 pmNice book recommendations. Both the Delillo and O’Neill books are hymns of sorts to NYC. Both are fabulously atmospheric and off-beat in their characterisation. Not gloomy or apocalyptic at all if you ask me.
July 21st, 2009 at 5:52 amWe’ve certainly got the supply side of music down and are nearing true portability/location-independence. Vinyl limits my location too much — I don’t want to be tied to the indoor hi-fi when I’d rather be under a shady tree or out walking through the city. I’m wired to the nines and I love having millions of songs /stations available from anywhere inside/outside my house and to a lesser extent on-the-go with my ipod or iphone.
The remaining problem is, as Dave points out, the actual decision of what to listen to. There’s a happy medium somewhere between random shuffle and being an always “on” DJ / Selector, which for me often means trusted DJ mixsets I’ve collected or web radio (WOXY, KCRW, Indie1031.com). Serendipity + familiarity + exploration.
I agree that “Setting a mood” with music is fraught with complications — do you want escapism, distraction, enlightenment, cathartic release, tranquility, novelty, reassuring nostalgia, something challenging and engaging or an unobtrusive background? Do you want the music to match your current mood or do you want the music to change it?
July 24th, 2009 at 10:57 am