On music ownership, death, and scrobbling
Originally posted on 2017-05-28.
This started as justification for why I still buy CDs, but then Gregg Allman passed away and that brought up a lot of memories. Things took a more stream of conscious turn, although not to Faulknerian “My mother is a fish” levels.
Music and Identity
In recent years I have gotten puzzled looks when I tell people that I still buy compact discs. In the midst of the vinyl resurgence and shift to streaming, I was pre-ordering new CDs on Amazon.com. This behavior was hard for me to explain until recently when an article about the implications of the shift to streaming connected ownership and identity.
I seriously started listening to music and collecting CDs around my sophomore year of high school (2004). Napster had been around for a few years, but I had a dial up connection at home and no portable mp3 player. The easiest way for me to consume new music was finding a physical copy.
I spent hours reading review sites and hunting down the suggested albums. In rare cases, I ended up on Vinyl Edge’s shitty GeoCities-like site hoping they had what I was looking for. If they did, then I would drive from southwest Houston to the north side to pick the album up. Gas was over $3 a gallon at the time, so in retrospect I should have used their mailorder form.
Today, streaming requires no such effort. I can easily find albums that were seemingly impossible to get before; furthermore, if I find a hidden gem, then anyone I suggest it to can get up to speed immediately.
I am not an audiophile, so I will admit that songs sound just as good when streamed; however, streaming feels less satisfying. The irrational pride of ownership has become part of my identity. The fact that I worked so hard to acquire an imported copy of Armageddon’s “Crossing the Rubicon” in 2006, and then paid so much for it, is an indication of passion and how much music means to me.
Music and Death
This passion for music was inherited from my dad. When I was in high school, a lot of our time together was spent browsing CDs at Soundwaves on Montrose. We would show up with hand written wish lists and go through every shelf.
On one trip I picked up Death’s “Symbolic.” Only after the purchase did my dad realize he had bought me an album by a band called Death. When he mentioned his concern about the band name, I pulled out the liner notes which read “This album is dedicated to all people with dreams, desires and positive ambitions” (note that good liner notes are enough to justify buying a physical album). He kept an open mind, and while I never suggested he listen to “Symbolic,” we traded a lot of recommendations over the years.Even today, a point of pride for me is introducing my dad, a huge blues and Texas music fan, to Gary Clark Jr.
In May 2016, my dad died. I immediately booked a flight back to Houston. I remember thinking that music would help, so I loaded specific albums for the flight. One was “The Bright Lights EP” by Gary Clark Jr.
About an hour into my flight to Houston I got overwhelmed, so I tried listening to music. Halfway through Things Are Changin’, I lost it. I turned the music off, and I do not remember listening to music the rest of the trip.
It is hard to describe what I was thinking and feeling during this time, other than I was often either angry or lethargic. Basically, an unpleasant person to be around. For so long music had been a release, but suddenly I did not feel the surge of power when the Air Raid Siren starts the chorus of Aces High.
Music and Coping
After about two weeks, I started listening to music again. I do not remember what inspired the decision to start scrobbling what I listened to; nonetheless, I revived a Last.fm account that I had not used in years. While it is hard to track “I was x% angrier” or “I was y% more lethargic,” scrobbling allowed me to track the changes in my music listening. Looking at the results is one small way for me to make sense of what happened.
My music selection became nostalgic: heavy metal, rap, and metalcore were the first genres I listened to in 2004-2006 when I was browsing the shelves of Soundwaves with my dad.
While my dad’s musical interests rarely overlapped with my high school tastes, occasionally we found common ground. For example, he introduced me to “At Fillmore East” by The Allman Brothers Band. We will never be able to settle our debate about whether The Allman Brothers Band was better than Lynyrd Skynyrd, but “At Fillmore East” remains one of my favorite albums.
Gregg Allman passed away yesterday. A eulogy for him in the LA Times mentions an interview from 1987, where he says:
“there is a great comfort in the music itself. It’s a shame that everybody in life doesn’t have something like that…so that if they fail in business or get your heart broken…you can still play your music. It helps get you through the darkest times.”
Damn right.