Sycophancy of Tramp-Brigade

Deep in the recesses of my memory I recall listening to music on vinyls which were also commonly referred to as records. One drawback of records is that most bands refuse to record entire albums containing only high quality compositions. Often albums are released with one or two excellent songs and a number of filler songs which the majority of people only listen to in order to fill the time between the excellent songs on the album. To skip songs on a record player one would have to pick up the needle and put it back down where the good song started. This would require getting up, walking to the record player, picking up the needle, having some knowledge of the song order and placing the needle back in the right place. All the while knowing that one false move could scratch the vinyl and ruin the record, thus a few minutes of suffering was often tolerated to avoid the risk of utterly destroying the music you loved.

If we fast-forward to the cassette era we also have developed the ability to fast-forward. It seems quaint now but at the time it meant we could move about the music listen to things more than once or skip things entirely. No longer would we worry about ruining our records but we did have to know the layout of the tape to find the desired song with any speed. To counteract the music industry’s unwillingness to produce albums without the appalling or at best mundane filler songs people made “mix tapes.” This would allow people to live life in complete bliss, listening to only their best loved songs, never having to stoop to the level of listening to any song that was not up to their high standards.

With the introduction of CDs, player technology was finally harnessed to allow for programming a “play list.” Since many albums have qualities similar to the last chocolate chip cookie to be scooped from the mixing bowl (the last cookie has between one and three chips on average (never grab a homemade cookie blindly from a cookie jar for this reason)) this bit of technology was a blessing. With a little effort the chocolate chip cookie that is the average album could be separated into “chips” and “other” thereby allowing easy listening without having to rerecord the music. Read/write CDs and affordable CD burners furthered this boondoggle of benefit with the ability to make a “mix CD” of the best songs, and then play an even more select subset those best songs. This way the not-so-super-duper-best songs could be separated from the super-duper-best songs.

One thing these mediums all had in common was that we were required to buy hours of average music in order to own our favorites. In spite of the fact that I have devoted several paragraphs here to the discussion of how horrible it was to live through these eras there was a bright side to this austere existence. It built character. By listening to music that was not my favorite, I would sometimes find that after a few plays of the album, I had a new favorite song. Some times what I originally thought was the last chocolate chip cookie was actually a cookie with some butterscotch and peanut butter chips and my desire for the different flavors changed with my mood over time. Albums that I bought years ago because I liked a particular song, I now listen to because I really enjoy different songs on the album.

Today I can go to itunes and buy nearly any song I want. I can buy all the music I want and never have to be exposed to anything that does not meet with my approval. It’s as though consumers have finally won. The victory, however, has left me empty. The convenient, economical value of buying the songs I love individually robs me of the joy that was listening to a new album for the first time. There was the impatient wait for the song that inspired my purchase and the discovery of the few other hidden gems as well as the larger themes or messages that coursed through the entire work. Today every song on my hard drive is ranked and I don’t have to listen to anything less than a four star song if I don’t want to (and why would I with all the “first-rate” music I have to choose from). My shining musical city on a hill has become a prison camp. I will never again have to listen to the strange or obscure. I will live a blissful stagnant life. My sense of community will slowly close like the drawstring on a hooded sweatshirt.

Who will save me from myself?