It's Just Time After All, Right? (The farther you are from fine...)

Consumerism is the new religion and, unless you are Keith Richards, there is a reset button that happens every 24 hours. But you can get stuff for free, so that leaves the ticking clock. And time never waits, so, that is pretty much the last currency: time. The time you have to consume things.

There was a story about how the album is dying due the simple fact that nobody is buying it. If  less and  less people are buying albums that means that less and less people are willing to listen to it for free. So what the hell is going on with that? 

The album, or LP, came out after WW2 due to advances in, you guessed it, technology. Recording technology is simply that, technology which always changes. When the medium of recorded sound emerged, the most popular and viable format was the 78 RPM disc that held only a few minutes. The LP had the boost of being the medium of choice during the baby boomer generation as well as the generation after, the consumer based generations that had the time and money to indulge in Music that way. But the sale of physical recorded Music and the Music business that bloomed from it started around the sale of single songs. Things have basically gone full circle.

But there seems to be something deeper going on than simply a culture being used to a particular format of Music presentation. Why do artists not make Wagnerian sized epic five hour works? No need for CD's! Just download it to your iPod. Why not make songs that are 30 minutes long! Who cares about the single!?!? You can get it for FREE! And you can make all these songs for free (or damn close to it) via computer based recording systems! If the LP, the format that replaced the single, is dead, why have we regressed? 

In the days where Music had to be paid for, there was a personal investment in the Music. You had to spend money you made (money = time doing something you hated) in order to buy something you would spend more time listening to. Example: 3 hours of mowing lawns = 1 Metallica album that you play for 100 hours. Not a bad exchange rate. And there was that feeling that you cared enough with the Music, identified with something in the Music, that placed something personal in the exchange. I am not sure if the tribal sensibilities that divided middle school and high school are as severe as they were back in the day (hating One Direction not withstanding) and I am not a proponent of anyone being harassed simply by the Music they listen to, But it seemed that Music DEFINED who we were because it defined how we dressed and gave a common ground that we were all invested in. 

As far as I can tell, the grunge era was the last big cosmic explosion of an entire cultural shift that combined Music, dress, and an unspoken youth zeitgeist that exploded like a nuclear reaction when "Smells Like teen Spirit" and "Alive" were played on MTV (that unifying channel that helped destroy culture as we know it, but I digress...) It seemed that within a year, a tide of change was sweeping over the entire country and was being embraced by this majority of people that were simply waiting to be heard. They bought albums and they went to shows. This religious zeal had its inevitable tragedy when Kurt Cobain killed himself. (For the record, I was in the middle of Seattle walking around the University district when the news came out and, traffic kept moving. Cars did not screech to a halt, youths did not flee from their classes. When I overheard someone say Cobain died, I went to a news stand and picked up a copy of the only paper that had the headline as it was a late morning edition. Ya' know what the guy in his early 20's said to me, "Hey. Get 'em while you can. Probably gonna be worth some money." And .... scene.)

After that era, the digital age began to, for better or worse, fracture the lens that gave us the focal points. Marilyn Manson had a decent run as did Dave Matthews. But outside of pop stars placing more time on show, fashion, and dancing than on Musical strength, there has been nothing like it. Small pockets of interest show up and I am sure Ozzfest will continue to have tens of thousands of people pay $50 for parking for the next 30 years. Loud dance Music gatherings will forever happen because people will always gather to do drugs and drink and have sex with people they will never remember. 

Live Music will not die because it is a moment of gathering, a pocket of religious revival for those who, instead of kneeling down and meditating, choose to go into a slam pit and get out all their pent up frustrations and, let's face it, have fun while keeping ER staff amused. There is nothing like live Music, be it classical or metal or jazz or whatever. It is, at its best, a truly spiritual experience (on all points along the spectrum). And live Music is where Music has, by definition, always existed, so perhaps it speaks to something primordial. All religions have had it. All cultures have had it. The poet Marie Howe stated that she believes that mothers have almost always sung something resembling a lullaby to their babies. Singing, which is live Music, is simply part of who we are.

But recorded Music? 

We are in the digital age where once someone can access an internet connection, time becomes the scarcest commodity simply because we can spend all of our waking hours on the internet. ALL of them. Between videos, news, Music, games, etc., the immediate and infinite supply has dwarfed demand simply by the math. The amount of hours you could spend on the internet enjoying yourself, losing yourself, being somewhere you are not, being someone you are not, is greater than your ability to consume it. Time is the only currency.

Who the hell has time and patience to listen to an entire album where you may not like everything you hear? 

There are better things to do..... right?