What Does Music Mean Anymore?

My company imports around 3900 shipping containers of specialty paperboard a year from The Netherlands to Virginia USA. Last year during a container shortage we received quite a few containers that had cold storage capability. The refrigeration capability was turned off. I wasn't even aware such a thing existed. Although I'm not an overzealous environmentalist, I wince at the thought of the need to import ice cream or other products requiring continuous cooling/freezing over such distances either by cargo ship or air cargo.

For me, AM radio nearly killed my interest in music. It was only with stereo and live music that my interest and enjoyment grew. So many decades later, it's live music that I enjoy. There is nothing quite like a 100 piece orchestra in full flow. I remember going to audition top range hifi kit and I thought, meh. Like Fran, I can play music in my head, so Desert Island Discs always seemed odd. I'm not sure how common that ability is though.

Bob Pockney

Let me state up front that I think the world of Fran but can only have sympathy for her being imprinted by AM radio. That's all I ever had until I was a junior in high school. Crystal set, 5-tube miracle, 78-rpm changer radio combo with killer bass boost, a 4-speed kid's lunchbox, and finally an entry level Radio Shack AM/FM receiver with external turntable and shoebox speakers. (No FM reception without moving the CATV cable to the receiver.) The first record I ever bought was Switched On Bach. The only playback at home was the lunchbox. I took it to school because the Band Room had a real stereo. All I can say is that it was utterly transformative. I instantly understood what was meant by "stereo field" and "soundstage". And the limiting definition of "staccato". But most of all I fell in love with Bach and whatever and whomever it was making that glorious music with sounds I'd never heard before that were perfect for the music.

Mike O'Dell

Is that a Kaos Pad??? The real reason for Atmos is that all the equipment providers, and most especially Dolby Labs, needed a New Shiny to obsolete all the expensive hardware they sold in the great Home Theatrics boom. That episode largely destroyed the film presentation theatre business. At least for Dolby, the license revenue from film producers kept on rolling in because that was the way film producers could still have a business with the theaters dying off. And the equipment makers had to keep licensing every "upgrade" because the movie producers were doing so. With 5.1 home theater saturating and 7.1-11.2 well past the point of silly (except for the Ferrari contingent), "object-based" sound was the ticket for obsoleting "spatial-based" sound. The Atmos system was sold to the action/adventure/crap-flying-around auteurs so that the theater homies could experience a simulacrum of the massively multichannel effects the were viable only in large theaters. Hot damn! All of this is about "rent-seeking" with new tech as the bait. And Dolby Labs has proven time and again as being the most brilliant. Not with the pure technology - DBX and a couple of others had much better pure tech. But Dolby has been unequalled practicing the dark arts with an aplomb that Machiavelli himself would bow to in reverence. They figured out how to get their tech *adopted* on a wide scale and to then keep the flywheel of mandatory evolution spinning along, printing money with another New Shiny. Can anyone remember a midrange or better cassette device that did not have some version of Dolby Noise Reduction? Nakimichi created the sine qua non cassette and transport that implemented the full pro studio version of Dolby (usually with much higher license fees) used on studio tape machines and scared whizz outa Major Names. Strong words were exchanged and the Nakimichi machine disappeared from the market. "Don't cross the (revenue) streams!" And so it goes.

Mike O'Dell

Unfortunately, music has now boiled down to it's net value in dollars. The original intent and purpose of music is gone, except live performance. Please support your local musicians! We are back again!

Ken Smithson

Fran, it sounds like you were starved for music as a child. That almost seems like child abuse! From 1970 to 1980 I was always in the presence of music. It was what kept me company in the basement while I tore apart whatever electronics I dug out of the neighborhood trash that day. You are right about DJs. They provided the personality for the music. But everything was on AM radio where that mushy, old-phone-like sound was considered normal. It was also normal that every electric tool I used caused the AM radio to distort, buzz, pop or squeal. AM radio in a big market like Chicago meant that the “top 40” stations were locked into playlists and the DJs had no flexibility to deviate from that list. They even complained about it on air from time to time. But that music formed permanent memories that cemented how I experienced music. The 80s came along and I moved to FM stations. No more caffeine-hyped DJs on AM. Music started to be something that I really appreciated for its artistry, not just its company. I started recording tons of music off of FM with audio cassettes. The late 80s were my college years and while everything they taught me academically has long ago faded of into the worthlessness is deserved, the music, the people, the places, the feeling that my whole life was ahead of me was unintentionally burned into my memory and emotions strongly adhered to the songs people played during those years. The last years before the responsibilities of adulthood. 1990 came, along with marriage, jobs, bills, responsibilities and endless repetition. New music went on without me and whatever “grunge” was all happening when I was too busy to notice. New music no longer spoke to me. Like you said, it was all in the performance and not the musical quality. Media no longer had to be “tangible” on some sort of physical media after the Internet took off. But what did I do? I found a website that had thousands of unedited recordings of music played over the air in the 70s. Even the commercials were included. I burned that music onto endless CDs. Then everything moved onto virtually limitless storage on thumb drives. The newest technology that is used to record and replay perfect music is crowded with authentic non-stereo broadcasts of decades past. Nothing past 1990. All old. All for memories of a better time. Now all of the music is on one thumb drive. A copy of that thumb drive is plugged into a USB port in my car. The music played in the car is only on the thumb drive and the playback is set to “random play”. That’s the equivalent of your computer dream machine that plays only what moves me and no song will ever be unfamiliar. The car had a few months of Sirus satellite music, which I never tried and neither the AM or FM receivers in the car have ever been tuned. It’s been set that way for 3 years now. And since I don’t like buying cars, this one will hopefully outlive me. Someone will eventually scrap the car and pull out an unnamed thumb drive from under the dashboard and never listen to it. All my memories. All that music. None of it could be relevant or appreciated. A tiny silicon time capsule of a life of music. Tossed emotionless into a recycle bin. But music is important to everyone in a very unique way. No one can have the experiences attached to another’s complete music library of the mind. Music seems disposable now. No need to make a physical recording on a CD or cassette. Everything is on a phone in the best audio quality available. The phones can go everywhere. Inserting and waiting for a cassette to rewind, or placing a needle directly onto a record album is something an entire generation has never had to experience. To “wait” for a tape to rewind. To “wait” for vacuum tubes to warm up in a radio. To “wait” to find the popular record album to appear in a record store. To “wait” for the radio to play your favorite song… Now there is not anything tangible to even turn into “dust in the wind”. I think that happened a looooong time ago.

Matt Wietlispach

Switched On Bach is great! I just found out about Wendy Carlos and other early electronic music last year when browsing the website for the Sisters With Transistors documentary (which I have yet to actually watch. [edit] Oops, misremembered... looks like Wendy Carlos might not be featured in that film, but lots of other interesting music in there.

Chips

👍👍👍 No matter our passions and wishing someone might find & cherish them after we're gone, the truth is that we are less than a speck in the calidescope of time. Ooh, "Dust in the Wind" ?

Jan Snyder-Ellerman

I only listen to two genres: jazz and OTR. 20 years of haunting budget bins for "cutouts" in the 60s and 70s had given me thousands of pieces to eventually break down into individual mp3 files to create mp3 player playlists when that technology arrived. A few years ago I was able to purchase 100K+ OTR shows on a terabyte drive and I set up an open source radio station log player automation software on a server in the house and then bought a handful of cheap TracFone burners (~$10.00) and some cheap BT mono speakers and I can now stream my curated jazz and otr playlists via my home network throughout every room in my home 24/7. When it's OTR time in the evening I can sit and listen, or listen from my phone if busy; the rest of my days and nights are programmed to suit my daily routine. It was extremely inexpensive to set up and was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream that began years ago when I set up cheap mono electric radios in every room tuned to WBFO's Jazzworks 24/7 jazz radio. Now I get to program the playlists myself. Until now I have never heard of anyone else running a home station! I feel just a little bit less odd.

Ah Clem

I have about 3 2x4 shelves of records like that.

Don

I agree wholeheartedly with just listening to music and letting it take over your entire being. And there always seems to be some new old music to discover. Recently, via another YouTube channel I am a Patreon of, I found Wendy Carlos's Switched on Bach and thus whole new back catalogue to explore.

David Peaker

This was touching to listen to. Thanks for sharing.

Motten