The Aesthetics of Digging Music

I'm probably dating myself here, but I have fond memories of digging through rows and rows of record bins at Cheap Thrills. The smell of the planked, unfinished wooden floor, the dust rising out of the oldies bins, the tangibility of those 12" squares, the joy of studying the detailed cover art, the joy of slitting the plastic seal with a thumbnail and turning the big disk of plastic over in my hands; the drag of having to flip the LP halfway through the album, of taking care to keep dust and scratches away from the surface. And if I struck it lucky, the fun of tacking the included poster up on my bedroom wall.

When CDs appeared, a lot of that visceral pleasure disappeared in the course of a couple of years. Despite their many advantages, so much about CDs felt cold. But with the advent of CDs, we got to keep one important thing--we still went to the record store with our friends, mulled over our choices, traded gossip on what was hot and new. Buying music remained a communal experience.

And that--not quibbles about quality or the constant battle to clear enough hard disk space to store a few more files--is my single biggest misgiving about the MP3 revolution. In one fell swoop, MP3 cuts the joy of record shopping--and all of the physical fun of handling albums--off at the trunk. Yes, there is a community of MP3 users, and you can still talk about music with your friends. But it's not the same. And it probably won't ever be the same again.

Maybe I'm a sentimental fool, but I think the act of record shopping is a crucial component in the overall aesthetic of enjoying music. And I hate to see it go. Of course, it's not like all the record stores in the world are going to disappear in this decade. But increasingly, people are going to hear about some hot new artist, and they're going to head straight for the Web, rather than down to the local record store. That process shouldn't be considered a burden--it's part of the fun, and an important part of the scene. We're giving up some of the funk. But such is the way of progress.

If you enjoyed this essay by Scot Hacker, read Scot's first essay in this three-part series, Piracy: Theory and Reality, and his second essay, A Thought Experiment.