| 5/25/2006 |
MUSIC MAKES THE PEOPLE COME TOGETHER
|
I think it is fairly obvious to anyone who knows me that I love music. When asked to list 5 hobbies or Things I Like, "music" will be three of them. So it's pretty safe to say that music is something I enjoy.
When I was younger and would consider purchasing a full length album (at the time the format of choice was cassette), it had to have a certain number of songs that I liked before I considered it worthy of spending actual money on it. Cassette singles were wonderful because it afforded me the option to purchase just one song from what might be a bad album. It explains how I ended up with Mary Moon by Dead Eye Dick as a single.
Finding someone to record a song for me wasn't uncommon. It did involve a certain amount of leg work to procur a blank cassette, a double tape deck capable of dubbing, and someone who owned the song. Considering my tastes in music, finding the person was typically the most difficult part.
With the arrival of CDs it actually become even more difficult. Singles on compact disc were uncommon at the places I shopped. You could still occasionally find the same song on cassette single, but it was growing rarer as time passed.
My standards for buying a CD were the same as buying a cassette. If there wasn't a certain number of songs that I liked, I woudn't buy it. This rule was drilled into me even more when I purchased a Jon Secada CD for one song and hated the rest of the album. It was the first CD I bought, and I keep it only as a reminder of past mistakes, never to be made again.
Thus came the age of Napster, which had it's pros and cons. I'll glaze over this period in my musical history for not only the sake of brevity, but possible self-incrimination.
Now we have iTunes which is both good an bad. iTunes allows me to purchase just those songs off an album that I enjoy. Yet at the same time it is like leaving me in the middle of a candy store and I don't know where to begin. One thing that I always had to go on in the past was the radio or music videos. I could easily tell what song on an album was probably going to be good based on airplay that it recieved. I'd get an album based on the songs I liked and then discover deeper cuts on an album that were great songs, but probably didn't get an play time.
If someone tells me that I'll like a certain album or a band and I've got the whole album to pick from... that's when my ADHD kicks in. Especially if it's a band that I've never heard of before, I may skip a song with a great chorus or hook because I couldn't get plast a slow intro before the song started to rock out.
Chocolate by Snow Patrol was one of those songs. I didn't like the intro for some reason. I knew I liked the song, but when I burned it to a CD I couldn't get past the intro. I'd hear just a second of it and press FFWD. It took a while before I gave it a chance. Now I love the whole song. Intro and all.
CDNOW doesn't help. Neither does iTunes preview function. The chances of them playig the part of a song that I'm going to like is possible, but not always probable. I wish there was some trial run where I could just hang out with the song for a while before I decide if I want to keep it or not.
In a way I'm almost back to where I started in terms of msucial procurment. If I like enough songs on an album I'll get it. Otherwise it may be lost to obscurity forever. Or at least until my musical sherpa points it out to me. |
|
I posted this @ 5/25/2006 06:48:00 AM.............Need a link?..........
|
|
|
|
|
|
