Comments on: Music Is A Package

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 13:53:53 +0000

Yeah, books rather dent the general 'no things' argument, although I guess that has a lot to do with the quality of screens compared to print...

I was saying to Dan, whose post inspired this one, that maybe music is headed the way of fashion: you have the major labels as the high street, punting cheap, near-disposable stuff, then independent labels as pret a porter, for folk who want to spend a bit more for something to keep and love, then the likes of Rune Grammofon and Dust to Digital as haute couture, the last recourse of a dwindling number of obsessives willing to shell out for something really beautiful.

By: ida

ida — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 12:48:37 +0000

I was thinking about this yesterday, whilst in Virgin Megastore. I thought to myself: It is ridiculous to suppose that people will keep buying albums as physical items with packaging et al. It already seems archaic. Then I thought: but books show no signs of declining in popularity, and people still want to hold newspapers and magazines in their hands. I don't know. I think it will take a long, long time - a generation - but the importance of owning things as objects is going to steadily decline as we head towards brain-in-jar status. It's quite nice to imagine a future where you could be almost unencumbered by THINGS. (Imagine the ease of moving house without records!) But nostalgia is extremely powerful too...

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 12:02:16 +0000

Well, I did say 'to be held gingerly' not that I always did...

Not that it was me, either. It was someone at a party. Which Kate probably orchestrated. Yes, that's it - blame Kate! Now that I think about it, I do remember seeing her laughing maniacally and holding a Stanley blade in the vicinity of that record...

By: Bobby

Bobby — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 11:34:37 +0000

gingerly my arse

your mother protests that the scratch on sgt pepper wasn't done by her!

By: Gary Fleming

Gary Fleming — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 09:14:34 +0000

Oooh. That off-centre one is nice.

I should point out that I also have a small vinyl collection despite never having owned a record player, most of it bought because it seemed good at the time. Such as the blue Japanese vinyl of JetPlane Landing's "Zero For Conduct".

By: Jack

Jack — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 21:48:47 +0000

Yeah, there is that side of it - I have way too many unlistenable things bought on the basis that, say, a 3" CD in a sleeve knitted from goat hair and inivindually hand-numbered in gold leaf couldn't be all that bad.

I'm a worse sucker for novelty vinyl though - coloured, transparent, marbled, etched, pressed off-centre...

(I should also point out that I'm only 26 myself, not 62 as this post might suggest!)

By: Gary Fleming

Gary Fleming — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 20:54:02 +0000

Not long out of my teens, and maybe I'm a traditionalist, but packaging is all important. I have a large music collection (5000+ mp3s), and the CDs for all but the rarest tracks.

People do still buy albums for the art, packaging and liner notes. Even though I knew "beautifulgarbage" by Garbage would be terrible (despite the brilliance of the two prior albums), I had to buy it anyway: a hexagonal fold-out cardboard rose encasing the CD, in a transparent slip... Nice.