So when Skynet falls and all the Cloud and online music is gone, or at least rendered inaccessible, I'll just fire up my generator and spin some of my old K-Tel records, thumbing my nose at the rest of the world. Yeah, that'll show 'em.
It's not like I don't look to the webiverse for music, though. I do go down one too many rabbit holes on Youtube now and then. That's how I discover both old and new music that I'd never heard before. Then I can decide what I like and don't like, and might consider buying an actual physical recording of the stuff I really, really like. Hey, it's not like the "old days" when you'd just have to trust your gut and shell out that five-to-ten bucks for the latest record by Cheap Trick or whoever. More impulsive and less discerning. There might be an advance single to wet your appetite, but certainly not the deluge of pre-release songs and videos now available online. There was some risk back then, but there was also a greater sense of anticipation... and then a greater sense of satisfaction and enjoyment once you owned and played that long-awaited and sought-after album.
As simple and easy as it is to access every song in the world these days, there's something missing... the process of that anticipation, the hunt, the wait, the visual stimulus and even the feel in your hands of finally having that special something by your favourite artist. When it's just a click away, it's all so out of sight, out of mind. But when you have a record, or even a CD or tape, in your hand, it's so much more interesting, fun, engaging, and rewarding. You went out of your way to find and obtain this, so you're much more invested in the music. A little relationship has been forged.
Another thing that I feel is lacking in the streaming music model: it doesn't encourage the listener to aim for albums. It's all about throwing a crap-ton of songs into your playlist. I've talked to so many people, mostly under age 30, who tell me they have all the Beatles and Pink Floyd music. Great! I say. Then I ask which are their favourite albums. Blank stare. Nothing. They don't know a thing about the original sources of those classic songs. The album format has sadly fallen out of favour, at least for the modern mainstream and its average Joe and Jill listener. The guys and gals who don't buy any music at all. They just want wallpaper sounds at the touch of a button.
But as I interrogate these hapless music newbies, I begin to realize they need a proper education, so I gently encourage them to at least seek out a single full album by the Beatles or Floyd, to appreciate the music as it was originally intended. To see what I'm talking about... and maybe get hooked on the idea of a self-contained package of songs... the album.
Sure, many a song can be enjoyed as a standalone - on its own merit (radio programming has worked that route for decades), but within the context of the studio album, the power of the song is even greater in its connectedness to the tracks before and after it. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the album, is a magnificent creation that every so-called Beatles fan (and everyone else) should hear, if not own in some format (even digital). Don't just listen to the title track and leave it at that; there is so much more to the Sgt. Pepper experience when taken as a whole album. The same goes for the song If by Pink Floyd. A neat little tune off a very odd album (not one of my faves, but still of interest), Atom Heart Mother. By itself, If is fine, a snapshot of Floyd at that time. But play the entire album and you've got not just a snapshot but a movie.
To carry that movie analogy further, think of a song as a single character in a movie. Often, that's how a song operates anyway... it's an intimate look at a person or a relationship. In a nutshell. Listen to a full album from start to finish and you'll experience a series of musical stories or threads of stories that weave together to make a bigger impact as a whole than isolated chunks of that "movie" (like movie scenes, perhaps). There can be (should be!) meaning in a song, but whatever we get from it will be manyfold if taken with its accompanying musical companions, the songs that the artist arranged carefully in a sequence that tells some sort of story.
Not every album is a concept album in the traditional sense (like a Yes or early Rush disc), but there is a flow and mood and pacing of the format that is undeniable. For example, if you've heard Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever album front to back, you know exactly what I mean. Never, ever have I put that CD on and skipped to a particular song. Then again, that album is so densely packed with amazing tracks that it's pretty much impossible to single out a best tune. What I'm saying is that Full Moon Fever was so perfectly constructed... every song in just the right place... that it plays like a continuing story (or movie, if you will), even if not every song links in an obvious way to the others. Lyrically, musically, thematically - however you see it, a mood is established and it twists and turns and alters as you work your way through the album. Listen to those songs out of order and it sounds kind of wrong, doesn't it?
And now I think it's time to check out today's new purchase, a 99-cent record from 1976 - in very good condition, a K-Tel collection of rock and pop gems. There's the ever-present gawdy album cover art - the requisite K-Tel brightly-coloured crazy design.There's some Guess Who, Abba, Ohio Players, BeeGees, War, and many others. I'm sure this album will see me through, too, as I hunker down in my bunker.
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