k-punk said:but tapes as vanishing mediators yes.... mention C90s at our college and the students look at you askance... what are they?
It's a shame. Tapes sound great. A bit hissy maybe, but warmer than MP3s.
k-punk said:but tapes as vanishing mediators yes.... mention C90s at our college and the students look at you askance... what are they?
WOEBOT said:Ha! So funny hearing this from you Nik. Remembering your Road to Damascus switch to mp3 last year.
blunt said:I don't find that obvious at all - if for no other reason than a gift is often valued more than a purchase made by one's self.
On the grounds that completist fervour is, I think, for the most part bound up with notions of 'ownership'; and it's easier to talk about ownership of a physical object. Indeed, I'm not sure to what degree one can talk about 'owning' a digital download at all.
Well that much is fairly obvious, if I may sayWhat I'm saying is that I don't. Really.
On a slightly separate point, I'd just like to add a small disclaimer - I tend to use P2P as a means of *discovering* new music. If I like it, I'll then go and by it. Like Juliand, I've got sick and tired of buying stuff only to find it's cack.
And yes, by 'it' I mean the actual, physical product, not the legal download; because at heart I am a sucker for the sleeve art and everything that goes with owning the physical item, be it CD or vinyl.
But I also find my behaviour - in principle, at least - quite quaint and outdated. Basically, I'm a dinosaur. A happy dinosaur, but a dinosaur nonetheless![]()
k-punk said:Downloading is entirely different from buying because
1: The fact that no money's involved makes you value the music less. As soon as something costs money it gains in 'symbolic' value. You don't pay for things because they have intrinsic value; on the contrary, because things cost money, they acquire a certain value. The fact that buying involves a scare resource (money) means that any transaction has to be more considered, judicious; with downloading, you can afford to be much less discriminating. The effect of this is corrosive, however. It's not that sound can be divided into 'downloaded' and 'non-downloaded'; all music begins to seem as evanescent and worthless as an MP3.
2: Downloading induces a kind of 'might as well' completism. i.e. since it's free, you 'might as well' download that dodgy album by a band you're never going to listen to, even once. Downloading makes your computer into the completist; as Zizek says of taped films, if the machine has them, you're relieved of the burden of having to watch them. Same with MP3s... if the computer has downloaded them, the pressure to actually listen to them is much reduced.... (Digital replication induces an odd neurosis about backing up too : once one vinyl copy of a record was enough; now I'm not satisfied unless I've got the CD, an MP3 copy on the hard drive and an MP3 back-up on a CD... But with each backing up operation, the actual music comes to seem less and less worthwhile...)
k-punk said:but tapes as vanishing mediators yes.... mention C90s at our college and the students look at you askance... what are they?
Something about having relationships with people where they care so much about you that they lovingly craft a mixtape for you, perhaps? Isn't that what's being fetishized?blissblogger said:that's interesting, cos i've got a faint sense that cassettes are starting to become fetishisable objects
k-punk said:all of which shows that culture is more ephemeral, existence less so...
blissblogger said:tangentially connected: on her first visit to our house one of the student girls who babysat for kieran exclaimed 'what's that?' and pointed at my turntable -- 19 and she'd never seen a record deck
head said:haha. jesus man. tell me a tale of existence without culture then. i'm serious.
2stepfan said:Something about having relationships with people where they care so much about you that they lovingly craft a mixtape for you, perhaps? Isn't that what's being fetishized?
I'll leave the amusing comment about High Fidelity to K-Punk.
i started this another thread on this thing today which it turns out i guess is maybe 'son of' this thread ....?cassettes: they were fucking shit
sufi said:unless you are on a shopping fetishist trip then the experience of acquiring the track must ultimately be insignificant compared to the evocative moments spent listening... music, after alll....for me music evokes different people, experiences, times in life regardless of whether it was overheard, bought, gifted, mixed, DLed from a blog or p2p...,
joeschmo said:every few years, some critic writes the "too much music" article. it's not a problem for anyone other than critics.
johnny greenwood said:There is loads of great music out there that you’ll never have time to find out about
k-punk said:The existence of the average person in Europe in the middle ages, in fact in any period up to the post-war twentieth century, was pretty ephemeral compared to now.
blissblogger said:me i like the sound of cassettes, it's warm -- an analogue medium innit
blissblogger said:me i like the sound of cassettes, it's warm -- an analogue medium innit