The technological revolution and the advent of the Internet have done much to change the fabric of the music industry. We all remember the Napster hearings. The first wave of the Internet-based illegal downloading sent music executives and artists into an outright panic that they would soon be without their (in most cases, generous) incomes. But luckily for Metallica and David Geffen, a bunch of teenagers on their Gateway PCs could not cripple the music business.
I think in many ways the advent of the Internet has been a wonderful thing for the world of music. All an independent artist needs is a YouTube.com profile or a Myspace.com page to put his or her music out there for the whole world to hear. For eager listeners, this means the ability to discover and explore a new artist in a matter of minutes. YouTube.com offers fans the chance to see favorite artists play live without access to shows. The Internet has helped make the world of music a place of more equal opportunity and more equal access.
Instantaneous access to music has also led to another, somewhat more unfortunate result. With ultimate musical exploration at our fingertips, our musical attention spans have shrunk significantly. MP3s and iTunes having become the dominant listening mechanisms, many of us have difficultly listening to one song all the way through without skipping to another.
Beyond diminished attention spans, the instant availability has rendered record stores nearly obsolete. Now that music is available to anyone, anywhere, at prices ranging from competitive to free, the neighborhood disc distributors are steadily disappearing. The average record store — once an important pit-stop for the casual listener and the avid music consumer alike — has become the domain of a nostalgic few who are desperately clinging to something that's steadily becoming obsolete.
This all may point to, I am afraid, an unfortunate inevitability in the world of music: the death of the album. In this case, I don't mean an album as a means of distributing a collection of songs, but rather an album as a complete work in and of itself.
The idea that an album could be more than simply a collection of songs developed in the '60s thanks to the efforts of The Beach Boys, The Beatles and others who recorded pioneer albums that were complete, fully realized works of art. People listened to these records all the way through — as they were meant to be heard.
Nowadays, we seem to be moving a lot more quickly. We are constantly berated by multimedia, television and the Internet. We barely have time to sit down and watch a movie without checking our e-mail, let alone devote time to appreciating something like an entire album. I consider myself a veritable music hound, and even I can't remember the last time I devoted an hour of my life to a record. Until recently, acquiring an artist's new work meant purchasing a whole album. iTunes now allows listeners to cherry-pick a few tracks here and there.
I don't mean to seem a Luddite. I concede that the Internet has allowed for many great advances in the world of music; it has made sharing and appreciating music easier for everyone.
I do foresee and mourn the death of the record. The nostalgic few may keep the tradition of the album alive, but for most, it will likely become a novelty. Call me old-fashioned, but I feel sorry for the generations to come who will not know the magic of listening to an album while holding the cover in their hands. The beauty of a physical record is that everyone gets a chance to own and experience an original and tangible piece of art. Somehow, I don't think a pixel image on a MacBook will have quite the same effect.
