In my parents’ day, record albums were where it was at! Somewhere in a box in their garage, there
are probably a few dozen sleeves with scratched recordings buried under layers of dust. The artists on these records are probably mostly either long gone or happily retired and spending their days with grandchildren, reminiscing about the glory days.
In a box in my eldest sisters’ attic is an old tapedeck with tons of tapes with music from her early childhood. Debbie Gibson, the Bangles and Whitney Houston are immortalized forever on low quality tapes. While some of these artists are still in production today (New Kids on the Block, we’re talking about you) most of them are now retired and occasionally make special appearances at awards shows and benefit galas.
In the back of my closet is a heavy old book filled with well-worn CDs. The Backstreet Boys, John Mayer, Fiona Apple, and Britney Spears are all filed away alphabetically. Mostly, they’re now pulled for friend game nights, where after a few glasses of wine “Barbie Girl” and “Hit Me Baby One More Time” are both nostalgic and once again socially acceptable to listen to. These artists now are mostly tabloid fodder and hosts for musical tv reality competitions.
Today, there are millions of songs available on iTunes. The holding case for these tunes are slim iphones, tiny mp3 players, or even trendy watches. These artists run the gammet, from the same crooners my father listened to all the way to new talent discovered on those same reality shows that the aforementioned 90’s sensations are now hosting.
The world of music has definitely changed over the last two generations and there is no real end in site. With some amazing web pages and hub spots for music available right now, it’s easy to feel as though we’ve reached the pinnacle of digital music technology: but if there is one thing that history can teach us it is that we are not done yet. I wonder what format the music of the future will come in? Maybe it will be beamed directly into our hearing through special jewelry?
What was your favorite format and why? If you had your preference, would we go back or move forward with our music?
Thanks to toolizzit2quit and Sarah Braun for use of their photos!
~Laura
Almost 10 years ago when I first started working with the elderly, I would occasionally play some very select songs off CD’s (sorry, but I just can’t sound like Frank Sinatra no matter how hard I try!). And I noticed that the elders in my groups would complain about how the music sounded– they kept saying it sounded too clear and clean. It took a few weeks for me to make the connection that they were missing the scratchy sounds of an album! So I had to find/download some original songs minus the digital remastering, burn them to CD’s, and that’s what I used from then on!
My personal music format preference (and not for the sound quality but more for sentimentality) would be cassette tapes. Ah, the age of mix tapes! 🙂 Thanks for a great post!!
Your comment about clean recordings are correct. The older crowd also heard a lot of music via the radio which also had poor quality. Personally, I had enough tapes eaten by machines that I don’t miss them. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I had to laugh when reading about your favorites, as they were all mine back in the day, Laura :). I still like CDs–maybe because you can see and feel them, not in the way you turn the dial on the iPod.
The other morning I was going to a 6:00 a.m. workout, and on the way I always listen to dance music that inspires me…well, wouldn’t ya know, I had to open the car window to get my ticket in the parking structure just as The Backstreet Boys were grooving to “Bye, Bye, Bye,” when this guy walks by and says, “Nice music” and smirks…
Maybe I’ll just plugin the iPod next time–less chance of an embarrassing nostalgic moment ;).
How about letting the nostalgia empower you? Remember, “old” music is showing up in TV shows like GLEE. Play what gives you joy, enjoy, smile!
What a great reminder of some of the classics! I know I’ve been really big with my Kindle Fire and Amazon playlist lately – but that doesn’t compare to the plethora of ‘stuff’ I have on CD. It’s not as easy to play them anymore (did our elders once think this about those other bigger round things?), but I do like to pull them out when the time is right. It’s nice to be able to download a one-hit wonder now without purchasing the whole disc, but it was kind of fun listening to the “not-so-good” songs from Huey Lewis, or Metallica, or the myriad of other music I jammed to over the years!
For me, that is the power of being able to upload our CD library to our iPod – transporting my favorites. But, it is also important to be open to potential new favorites. Keep listening, keep enjoying!
This is a fun topic to think about. My favorite format was cassette tapes. I have fond memories of recording demo tapes with my garage band on my old Magnavox boom box. I have to admit though that I love digital music and having everything at my fingertips. Recently, I have been using an app called Spotify that allow me to stream 15 million tracks within seconds on my iPhone. It is amazing and so much fun. I look forward to the future of music, but I am still hanging on to those old cassettes to show my kids. 🙂
I do not even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was good. I don’t know who you are but certainly you are going to a famous blogger if you are not already 😉 Cheers!