Aughts for Audiophiles

The decade ends tonight. It has been a massive one for music fanatics.

At the beginning of the decade, I would spend the daylight hours of at least a Saturday or a Sunday coming thru the bins at Plastic Fantastic, Repo Records in Bryn Mawr / Philly, Space Boy in Philly, etc., etc. I would on occasion spend upwards of $20 for import, or more for rarities…

Now I “buy” my music via the internet either directly from the label, from itunes, and, erm, other sources. Nothing, I say, nothing is unavailable. Rarities / imports / out of print records are obsolete!

At the beginning of the decade I negotiated stacks and stacks of cds, milk crates of lps, clattering boxes of cassettes…

Now I have a 120 GB iPod that hold all of that and more…

At the beginning of the decade I could pass the time via an occasional re-org of my collection (by alphabetical order, by genre, by release date, etc.), pausing along the way to savor the album art and play (literally) favorites…

Now I “shuffle” through my album art and create “Smart Playlists” via itunes…

I used to wonder whether this change was good or bad. I certainly miss the record store experience, but it was time consuming, expensive and at times frustrating. I can admit to missing the tactile element of engaging album artwork, but (with the exception of LPs), said artwork was entombed in plastic, which took up a lot of space, signified a brand of personal detritus that would survive me by perhaps 10x in some future landfill, and consumed precious resources. Perhaps I note some nostalgia for time spent wallowing in the details of my records, cds and tapes, but now they are all in one portable, rapidly referenceable place (i.e. my ipod). Perhaps I miss the community involved in finding out about new artists to be found at record stores, on mix tapes, in cds I could lend out (and then never see again), but there are blogs so specialized in genre or mood that it is hard to complain.

The 00s should go down as the decade that the music fanatic entered an entirely new world. For the most part, I say it is good.