Discussion on Physical Music

This article at City of Sound discusses how all relevance and relationships between sound, style and artistry are lost with the commodification of music through digital retailers such as Itunes music store.

The reduction (or elimination) of physical product associated with music is driving this change.

While the article is based on Jazz, I feel that it holds true for any sort of music. Without album art and correct discographical info, much relevance is lost. The article posits that at some point all info on Jazz may be held by a few archeologists. In the past, listeners could read the album jacket and learn about session date, relaease date, composition credits, session players, etc. Now with itunes, the info seems to focus on the reissue, not the original release date. This makes it hard for driven music fans to search out other releases due to connections they may learn about on record covers or liner notes.

I enjoy getting an old record from a record show, garage sale or wherever and reading about the details related to the music.

In the digital age, it is so much more about quantity of music and not quality of experience. I think I am the only person that I know that ditched his ipod. I felt that the negatives far outweighed the positives of the experience.

If I were a recording artist, I think that I would be mourning the faceless world that we are creating with mp3s and filesharing et al. Music has just become another piece of software.