Thursday, January 3, 2013

mp3eed off

It was 1988 and I had a lot of time on my hands. I was cooped up at home for over three months in a very weakened condition because I was on chemo therapy. Besides barfing my guts up, and watching crappy television shows, there wasn't much to do. So I decided to move my entire LP record collection (LP; an ancient way of recording music. The L for long, and P for playing.) over to cassette tape. I could see the writing on the wall. When I went to the record store (Another ancient relic where people went to buy music in the olden days.), where there had been aisles and aisles of vinyl records, there was now a wall of cassette tapes and something called CDs. I knew the CD would never catch on because it was so much more expensive than cassette tapes. I spent weeks playing each and every album I had, and recording them to tape. When I was done I felt good. I had secured my collection of music on a form that I would be able to use until the day I died.

On Christmas morning last week, amid the flying wrapping paper, and dogs flinging newly acquired toys across the living room, I slowly opened the large package Mark had handed me. It was a new stereo music system for my office. It took me a while, but yesterday I finally put it together. There were a few problems.
"Mark, where do you play cassette tapes on this thing?"
"You don't."
Okay, I thought, I don't ever need to listen to the couple of hundred tapes I have. I have plenty of CDs.
"They don't make cassette tape players anymore." Mark continued on, "Not only that, I had to look long and hard to find a stereo that plays CDs."
I continued to fiddle with the new stereo, wondering aloud how would I play music on this damn thing.
"Pull down that little panel on the front." Mark instructed.
I pulled it down.
"What the hell is that?"
"That's where you dock your IPod. That's where you play your music."
I don't own an IPod. Now I know how my grandmother felt when the wax cylinder became obsolete.
So the fact is that the market is forcing me to embrace a new technology. I think it sucks, because I know it's all a scam to make you re-buy all the music you already paid for. I have been reading about pirate music sites on the internet lately, and how they have hurt the music industry. I really have no sympathy for them. In fact I think I should be allowed to download every single bit of music that I have already purchased, for free. I'd go with the new technology if they allowed me to do that. I mean how could an mp3 file ever become obsolete? And then I read this.

"Neil Young is all about new technologies. Long fed up with mp3s, the rocker has spent years experimenting with improving sound quality, and now Young has finally trademarked Pono, his very own high-resolution audio format."

Asshole.

6 comments:

  1. if you use those pirate music sites, be very careful. They can ruin your computer!

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  2. Mark obviously didn't look very hard... I found a vinyl, cassette, AND CD player... It can record your music to your computer via the USB cable, AND it has that old-timey look that you should find comforting. :) I present the Victoria GDI-TW3USB...
    http://www.amazon.com/Victoria-GDI-TW3USB-Stereo-Entertainment-Paprika/dp/B002WTN8QK

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  3. Helpful Nephew, that thing would be just fine, but it is quite large. My new stereo fits in a little nook on my desk. And think of all the work it would take to now move all my music over to mp3 files.

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  4. Oh -- I remember when my parents bought me an 8 track tape player for Christmas. And of course I had vinyl albums and even 45's. Yes... I did.

    Yet. I'm loving my iphone and all of my itunes purchases. I think I've made the transition.

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  5. Here is the App and together with this website you can download every album you ever bought and for free. It is...oops I better tell you in private...

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  6. I'm with you on MP3s blowing (and Neil Young). Especially the Apple iPod format. I don't have any vinyl left, but I don't do MP3.

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