That’s the name of the second cut on the new Bob Dylan album.\u00c2\u00a0 I just listened to it.\u00c2\u00a0 I downloaded the package after finding a link on a music blog.<\/p>\n
I won’t say I was horrified, but I no longer had an urge to listen to the rest of the album.<\/p>\n
When I was growing up, you saved your money for music.\u00c2\u00a0 If you were a fan, you spent ALL your money on music.\u00c2\u00a0 And you could afford very little.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d go to Korvette’s in Trumbull, CT and visit the albums I planned to buy.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes I never purchased them, new releases bumped old records from the queue.<\/p>\n
But those records I did buy?\u00c2\u00a0 I played the shit out of them.\u00c2\u00a0 To the point where I know not only the music, but the skips and scratches.\u00c2\u00a0 I expect to hear that skip in Jackson Browne’s "Rock Me On The Water" every time the track comes over the radio, or comes up in my iTunes library.\u00c2\u00a0 You might have told me to replace my vinyl record, I’d have told you I COULDN’T AFFORD TO!<\/p>\n
Not that I didn’t treat my vinyl well…\u00c2\u00a0 But sometimes the records came defective.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, a couple of stores told me not to buy there anymore, after returning so much crap product. And I was known, because I bought so many records, unlike the casual listener who only bought an album a year.<\/p>\n
But now it’s completely different, I can listen to every cut ever released, for free.\u00c2\u00a0 On Spotify.\u00c2\u00a0 In the U.S., we’ve also got Napster and Rhapsody, and a ton of streaming online. So the urge to HEAR something, it can be satisfied so easily.<\/p>\n
Don’t you remember going to a friend’s house and seeing an album you never heard and having your eyes light up?\u00c2\u00a0 Sliding it from the stack and insisting it be played immediately?\u00c2\u00a0 That doesn’t happen anymore, there’s no urgency, you can hear everything, right away.\u00c2\u00a0 Oftentimes before the rights holders even want you to.<\/p>\n
Speaking of the rights holders, they want to jet us back to the old days.\u00c2\u00a0 When we had a limited amount of money and could afford very little music.\u00c2\u00a0 For the life of me, I don’t know how they’re going to achieve this.\u00c2\u00a0 All their strategies haven’t worked so far.\u00c2\u00a0 Are you going to shoot downloaders and make albums a $1000 apiece?\u00c2\u00a0 Will they blow up hard drives if they’re copied?<\/p>\n
No, we must face the new reality.<\/p>\n
And new isn’t so special anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Good is special.\u00c2\u00a0 Great is truly amazing, incredible, what we’re looking for.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t want to waste time with anything that doesn’t grab us. Don’t lament those who don’t want to give albums a chance, playing them nine or ten times, just ask yourself if you want to be forced to watch only what’s on CBS, NBC and ABC, enduring the commercials to boot.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s incredibly painful, you’d scream to be released.<\/p>\n
This is the mentality of the consumer today.\u00c2\u00a0 He doesn’t care about your marketing plan, how the act looks, just whether the music impacts him, almost immediately.\u00c2\u00a0 DON’T ARGUE WITH THIS!<\/p>\n
If only Springsteen had put a track as good as "Born To Run" on his new LP.<\/p>\n
If only U2 had included "I Will Follow" on their latest opus.<\/p>\n
THEN, people would pay attention.\u00c2\u00a0 Those tracks grabbed you immediately.\u00c2\u00a0 You wanted to hear more.\u00c2\u00a0 You bought the album.\u00c2\u00a0 You played it BECAUSE YOU PAID FOR IT!\u00c2\u00a0 Ergo, the album renaissance.\u00c2\u00a0 A whole eco-system developed based on the album.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s been obliterated.<\/p>\n
You’ve got to make me want to check you out.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s an incredibly hard thing to accomplish.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t bang me over the head, you can’t even tell me about your chart position.\u00c2\u00a0 Did you see that great photo online today, about the Rick Ross signing<\/p>\n
\n