I have been collecting music for exactly 30-years. For my 12th birthday I bought my very first record – a 45 RPM record of J. Geils Band’s “Centerfold”, a record I still possess. Yes, my parents clearly didn’t understand the lyrics behind the music…truthfully, nor did I.
Over time, my 45 collection came to number in the 100’s, LP’s came to number in the 100’s, cassettes which came to number hundreds more some of which duplicated my LP purchases, then CDs which came to number over 500 at various points. Over time this amounts to a lot of “stuff.”
Music collecting had become more about collecting “records,” and it is that distinction that I carried with me into my late 30’s. On the other hand, the “Gen-Y” crowd has grown up with digital music – and their collections are digital files. They carry their entire music collection (as distinct from “record collection”) with them in the form of iPods and the other varied and assorted MP3 players.
As a “Gen-Xer,” I was slow to adopt the “music” collection over “record” collection – if I couldn’t feel, touch, or otherwise experience the packaging as well as the music it didn’t “feel” like owning a copy of a work. It almost every other aspect of my life, I had long since adopted the digital medium and while I may not be the “digital native” of Generation-Y, I’m probably one of the most technically literate people going of either generation. But music…music was something different.
However the “stuff” in my life came to be somewhat burdensome. Over the course of time, these things came to be misplaced, given away, or otherwise just stored away as the rest of life’s “stuff” came to be more important. At one point, I would have preferred a Bang and Olufsen system over having an automobile, but somehow over time I found I’d prefer a sofa or a kitchen table. Over time, those things came to dominate my home and managing my records came to be more hassle than it was worth – especially given the limited amount of time I actually took to pull a disc out and play it.
And so it came to be, this stodgy Gen-Xer came to adopt digital audio. I ripped each and every one of my CDs to MP3 – and I realized how many of these discs I really don’t care for anymore, but I kept the digital copies. I bought a USB turntable and ripped copies of my old vinyl to MP3 with varying results. Fully armed with my iPhone, I can carry with me my entire “music” collection and pull up any given song I want at any given time. If I so choose, I can pull up a copy of a partially warped record, complete with cracks and pops – there’s something about the remastered Rolling Stones music that makes the music seem hollow and sterile next to a copy of a somewhat time-worn record.
And so it is, 30-years later, I can literally fit most of my life’s important music into my pocket and take it down off the wall, the CD holders, the display case – what have you. Now, I still haven’t been able to pry my books out off the shelves in favor of a Kindle or Nook, I am a big fan of audio books played on the very same iPhone on which I carry my music – there’s something sacrosanct about the feel and smell of the paper that just can’t be replicated on a Kindle, something completely different than the compulsion to own a “thing.”
I have come to feel comfortable “owning” digital copies over the physical object of a record, and because I can sort through them, build lists, and shuffle I have rediscovered so much of the soundtrack of my life. So, I have come to be free of possessing that physical object for the sake of possessing it, and have come back to enjoying that which I wanted that object for in the first place.
One Thousand Songs In Your Pocket
Mo's Marketplace 