Blue-in-Green:RADIO

Tuesday 5 November 2013

Me, myself and my CDs (part1)

Y'know when you're having an argument with someone and you know you're not getting your point across well at all - there's a logic, a stance and a moral standpoint that justifies and explains everything and you're just not able to verbalise it at all, but worst of all, you know that later when you're replaying the exchange back in your head, the exact thing you should have said will occur to you and you'll kick yourself for not having realised it at the time!

The argument I'm talking about - which you can hear in full drawn out completion - can be found here in LF's debate about how we (music fans) consume our music [I'll also post up a link to the more recent November podcast that's about to air where we discuss the 'future of music' which touches on how people currently consume music and how they may continue to do so in the future].  If you didn't know when listening to the podcast, I'm the one frantically on the defensive trying to justify my standpoint of still buying CDs - I think I was actually called 'grandad' at one point?!  It would appear that Team LF take in music through practically every means possible, as long as it isn't by purchasing a hard copy.

I think one of my leading arguments was that 'I present a radio show and see myself as a bit of a collector', but that arguement served no purpose as still I was unable to muster up any level of understanding.  I do feel though that if I had been a vinyl junkie and had said 'I present a radio show and see myself as a bit of a collector', then the response would have been 'Oh, that's ok then'.  There's certainly something about vinyl that garners peoples' automatic respect as a fan and collector but CDs are just met with 'What's the point?'

I started to get serious about my music in my mid-to-late teens and had no aspirations of DJing or presenting so through the ease of purchasing at that time, CDs were the way to go.  And this is actually a little bit before MP3s became readily available, so if your friend had a really cool song on a CD that you wanted, you wouldn't say, 'Can you burn me a copy or email me the MP3', you'd say, 'Can you record that song on to Side B of my D90 tape please - cos that's what we did back then!  Wait a minute, maybe I am a grandad?! (ha ha).  But it genuinelly wasn't long before MP3 sharing became the thing furthering the ease of burning your own CDs, etc.

I don't think it's a shame that more people don't buy CDs, and I certainly don't think they're wrong for not doing so but I guess I'm surprised that someone else would be surprised that someone does do those things.

I thought this would be a great way to maybe segue into a different perspective - something of a celebration of the CD: it's packaging, it's artwork, so in the next week or so, I'm going to compile a few pictures of some of my pride and joys, and some CD packaging and album cover artwork my collection simply could not do without.

Make sure to check back here soon...

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