Why Physical Media for Music Still Matters
These days its really easy to listen to almost anything you want. Subscribe to Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, Soundcloud, Tidal, Amazon Music, Deezer, Qobuz, Nugs, Groovers (the list goes on-and-on)... and stream what you want, when you want it.
Some of these services, like Tidal Masters, even provide high-resolution MQA streaming (which I personally think sounds really good). Nugs has even announced that they are bringing MQA to iOS devices.
To me, the biggest downside to using digital streaming services (besides sound quality - since with high-resolution flac and mqa streaming the gap has basically closed) is that listening to music becomes less intentional. For the most part, people don't sit down and listen to an album anymore, they pop-on a digital mix of some sort - and either let it play in the background or skip around from song-to-song and artist-to-artist, often not letting an entire song play through - let alone an entire album.
It wasn't that long ago that listing to music was an activity. It was not passive, and it certainly was not just something to drown out silence.
With records, cassette tapes, and to a lesser extent - even cd's, there was ritual involved. We stood up, selected the media, placed it in the playback device, and listened from start to finish. We then stood up and did it again.
We listened to the media in the order the artist (or producer) intended. We sat with friends and family and actively listened to music together - much in the same way as people sit together to watch a movie.
For many of us, listening to music provided activity, ritual, social interaction and connection... It gave us a way to separate ourselves from the every-day (profane) and create sacred space. In fact, if you subscribe to Emile Durkhaim's "sacred-profane dichotomy", actively listening to music can be considered a religious experience - and a fundamental component maintaining integrity and coherence of life.
So. Next time you are sitting around with a group of friends, with pandora plugging away in the background. Try putting on a record, playing a tape, or maybe just choosing one album via your streaming service and playing it all the way through - while actually mindfully listening, and maybe even discussing what you hear... And make a mental note of how it changes the experience... You might like what you hear.
Some of these services, like Tidal Masters, even provide high-resolution MQA streaming (which I personally think sounds really good). Nugs has even announced that they are bringing MQA to iOS devices.
To me, the biggest downside to using digital streaming services (besides sound quality - since with high-resolution flac and mqa streaming the gap has basically closed) is that listening to music becomes less intentional. For the most part, people don't sit down and listen to an album anymore, they pop-on a digital mix of some sort - and either let it play in the background or skip around from song-to-song and artist-to-artist, often not letting an entire song play through - let alone an entire album.
It wasn't that long ago that listing to music was an activity. It was not passive, and it certainly was not just something to drown out silence.
With records, cassette tapes, and to a lesser extent - even cd's, there was ritual involved. We stood up, selected the media, placed it in the playback device, and listened from start to finish. We then stood up and did it again.
We listened to the media in the order the artist (or producer) intended. We sat with friends and family and actively listened to music together - much in the same way as people sit together to watch a movie.
For many of us, listening to music provided activity, ritual, social interaction and connection... It gave us a way to separate ourselves from the every-day (profane) and create sacred space. In fact, if you subscribe to Emile Durkhaim's "sacred-profane dichotomy", actively listening to music can be considered a religious experience - and a fundamental component maintaining integrity and coherence of life.
So. Next time you are sitting around with a group of friends, with pandora plugging away in the background. Try putting on a record, playing a tape, or maybe just choosing one album via your streaming service and playing it all the way through - while actually mindfully listening, and maybe even discussing what you hear... And make a mental note of how it changes the experience... You might like what you hear.
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