OK, two things: One, I’m totally poaching this post. And two, I don’t care, so why should you? The following treatise on the digital world was a column I wrote earlier this year. Viva La Revolution!
The song I’m posting is just for shits and giggles. I found it on blog by following a link from another rather large MP3 blog. I’d direct link but this is important and I want you all to hear it so I’m posting it myself. As for naming names, I might as well pass on the love. Check out Stereogum for great indie rock and pictures of Lindsay Lohan. And then look up Banana Nutrament for more interesting things
The Gap Widens: Being Analog in a Digital World
The world is changing. Technology is moving faster, erasing the analog features of our lives and replacing them with digital replicas. Living in a digital world makes it easy to forget that there are human beings behind those tiny bytes of information, those 1s and 0s.
I live in a funny place, straddling the gap between digital and analog, always hoping the gap won’t get much bigger because my body just doesn’t bend like that. Continued after the jump.
Stuff to Sample: Arcade Fire's "Wake Up" with a very special guest helping out on vocals. Can you guess who?
I have a massive collection of digital music, but I prefer to listen to vinyl. I keep tabs on the world through the net, but nothing beats the feel of newsprint. I’ve entered a new age of technology firmly entrenched in the past. I like digital, but I love analog.
But as much as I love old technology, I know it has its limitations and where analog fails, digital will succeed.
The Internet reigns supreme as the most important aspect of the new digital age, simultaneously transforming and democratizing old media.
News no longer has to come from conservative papers or liberal TV networks (or vice versa). Niche market news sites and Web logs (blogs) have become the answer to the watered-down national news media.
Where the advent of the 24-hour news channel failed to create a stronger media, choosing to focus on quantity rather then quality, the new digital age media is free to focus on quality and to take the long, hard look at some deserving issues.
The same principles hold true for the music industry. In the heyday of analog, the recording industry was a veritable oligopoly. Record labels chose the musicians and controlled the means of production and distribution, effectively holding the recording industry above the common man (not that there haven’t always been some great independent labels, but I’m speaking in the simplest of terms).
As technology began to improve and music enthusiasts or home musicians began to gain ground, the recording industry went to war.
The large labels did not like the dual cassette recorder (remember those things? Kids, go ask your parents) and they sure as hell do not like CD burners.
These innovations and many more like them have begun to level the playing field, tipping the balance of power away from industry toward the individual.
Even as the technology improves and the those with the power and money (i.e. the music industry), who could be exploiting the newest innovations, have fought tooth and nail to leave the analog system in place. That is, until they realize they can make money in the digital world too. Then the public is forced to sit and watch as these hapless executives awkwardly try to fit the square peg of analog consumerism into the round hole of digital freedom.
Digital freedom has changed the way music fans find new music, thanks to Web sites, free downloads, peer-to-peer (P2P) programs and MP3 blogs.
Production is no longer confined to expensive recording studios. The price for great sounding home recording has plummeted in recent years.
Distribution is as easy as burning a new CD or uploading new songs. Independent record labels can now operate in cyberspace, offering all digital music, reducing the amount of money needed for production of materials while increasing the amount of money available for the artists.
Yesterday, anyone could play guitar, while only a few guitar players ever made a record. Today, anyone who plays guitar can record their songs, package their music, promote themselves and even sign themselves and others to their very own record label.
Best of all, anyone can participate. Those who want to be musicians, record label owners or music critics can do it themselves because the digital age has afforded us that privilege.
As digital video technology continues to improve, the same full-scale democratization will hit the medium of motion pictures.
Digital technology has already opened the doors for some great directors who would never have had a chance to make the movies they wanted to make.
Yet, with all the freedom available at our fingertips, there are drawbacks. Don’t forget what it feels like to hold a newspaper. Don’t forget cassette tapes and what it was like to wind one back into the case after the stereo almost ate it. Don’t forget what vinyl really sounds like and its intoxicating smell.
Don’t forget that there are people behind those digital bits of information.
that has to be mr. david byrne. do i win a button???
You are totally running out of ideas, yo. I read that mofo, like, years ago. Just joshin', RFO. It really is one of your best works. Which reminds me that we really need to get the cornhole project off the ground. Have we said that before?
Last, Beef reminded me that you need to send VS his button or he will keel youuuu.
[1][2] Sorry beefers, that is not David Byrne, nice guess though. Dont worry, there will be another prize package contest very soon. Or as soon as I can think of one.
And C$, I promptly sent Vitamin his prize pack but it promptly came back because apparently I was high when I addressed the envelope. I already e-mailed him. Stop freaking out. And yes, we have to write a book. Lets get on it.