Jealous in the Ears
I had been assigned a task by a friend of a friend of a friend. Or rather, I had been asked a favour by a friend of a friend of a friend (but I set about it like a task): write a review of his recently released CD. I sat down at my computer, popped the disc into the drive, nestled a pair of earphones up against my head, pressed play, opened up the word processor and waited for the words to flow. Only they didn’t. So I tried it again later. Same progression: computer, disc, earphones, music, keyboard. Aaaaaannnnndddd, nothing. Mrrrrr, pffffff, naaaarrrrrggghh. Blocked. It’s not that the disc was bad, or not my style, or uninspiring. It’s just that the words that came to mind when I listened to it were more about the process of reviewing it and not at all about the music itself. It appears that if the medium doesn’t have a plotline then I have neither the skills nor the vocabulary to critique it. I find this highly frustrating.
Reviewing movies, television, books – not a problem. I write about five recaps a week about television shows, complete with snarky comments, tips for the producers, grammar pointers for the characters, game theory analysis, wardrobe suggestions, inside jokes, commentary on the effects on society, and my own big fat opinion. No problems! (Well, a few problems. 1 – they require a lot more effort than I had at first estimated and 2 – they interfere with my ability to create other thought-provoking and poignant entries on other topics, you know, like Paris Hilton’s sidekick getting hacked!) I mean no problems finding the words to describe what constitutes good, or bad, or a waste of time, or love disguised as hate, or hate disguised as love. But movies, television, books – these mediums all have characters, and timelines, and plot developments and lots of concrete things that I can hook onto and expound upon.
Music, not so much. Unless it’s operatic, like Queen, or Styx, or maybe Meatloaf, it turns out that I am stumped. A music CD is a set of discrete creations that may or may not link together to form a coherent storyline or dialogue. More than often: not. Don’t get me wrong – I love music. I love a plaintive singer/songwriter. I love a thickly layered electronic mix. I love a catchy hook, a well-timed fake ending, a sweeping key-change just as much as the next person. And I can tell you what I think is good (Ray LaMontagne, Hed Kandi, Kelly Clarkson, or Sloane for a start.) I just can’t seem to tell you why. At least not at any great lengths. I would have made a terrible teenager on American Bandstand. “Uh, I like Green Day, but I can’t dance to it.” And so I will have to tell my friend, to tell her friend to tell his friend that I cannot help him out. The task was larger than I.
But speaking of music – I am currently in the throes of a great deal of music envy in general, iPod envy in particular. These little iPods are everywhere now! It’s an iPod invasion. It’s an iPod nation out there! They’re not just up on the billboards, spotted and frozen mid-groove in pink and green and yellow and blue, the pods themselves have actually entered the streets and the subways and the gyms and the parks. People on bikes are wearing them. Business men with briefcases are bopping up Bay St. with them. At my yoga studio, a woman unplugs the iPod earphones from her ears before rolling out her sticky mat. “Pre-meditation tunes,” she says. And I am green with envy!
I want one so bad now that every time I see someone enjoying the benefits of 6 gigabytes of uninterrupted, personally designed playlists I simultaneously feel pain in my chest and butterflies in my stomach. The thought of my whole music collection, completely customized and mixed to my preference, sitting in a handheld device just waiting for me to press “play” thrills me. Imagine: a mix of Ray LaMontagne, Josh Rouse, Mary Lou Lord, Emm Gryner, Sarah Slean and my husband Jason Mraz* for the morning subway ride, just to get my brain functioning. In the evening, mix it up with some Keane and The Shins and maybe even The Killers. Dirty Vegas and Van Dyk for peppy walks through the park. If I ever join a gym again, I could get motivated with Avril or Kelly Clarkson. Or Jennifer Lopez or Britney Spears or Kylie Minogue! (Yes, I like them. Yes, really. I’m serious! Yes, even Jennifer Lopez. Even after the whole Ben Affleck thing. Yes, even Britney. Yes, I know she married a deadbeat, he-capri wearing, classless piece of ****. Yes, I do still like her. Yes, I swear to you I can still sleep at night. No, I’m not ashamed. NO, I won’t apologize!)
The thought that I can’t afford this little piece of heaven breaks my heart.
Apple why have you done this to me? You’ve supplied my demand but priced it completely out of my natural equilibrium! And given the fact that it seems like everybody and their cousin is sporting the contraptions around their necks lately, I’m pretty sure you’re not going to narrow the price gap just for little old me. Let’s make a deal: I’ll give you $40 for one? No? No. Sigh. Okay. I’ll go back to the intermediary technology of my MD player. It’s a gizmo that I love for the fact that it is tiny and the discs hold up to six albums each on them. And they’re completely re-writable. But the problem is this: there are just too many steps involved in maintaining my music collection on MD. I have to go from downloaded MP3 on the computer, to burned CD, to converted MD. That’s three whole steps! In three whole different formats! I’m tripling the memory storage required for my musical data. I’m a huge music hog! The iPod is so much more convenient. And flexible. And cute. And, yeah, right, expensive. That was my point all along.
* In no way is he really my husband.
Reviewing movies, television, books – not a problem. I write about five recaps a week about television shows, complete with snarky comments, tips for the producers, grammar pointers for the characters, game theory analysis, wardrobe suggestions, inside jokes, commentary on the effects on society, and my own big fat opinion. No problems! (Well, a few problems. 1 – they require a lot more effort than I had at first estimated and 2 – they interfere with my ability to create other thought-provoking and poignant entries on other topics, you know, like Paris Hilton’s sidekick getting hacked!) I mean no problems finding the words to describe what constitutes good, or bad, or a waste of time, or love disguised as hate, or hate disguised as love. But movies, television, books – these mediums all have characters, and timelines, and plot developments and lots of concrete things that I can hook onto and expound upon.
Music, not so much. Unless it’s operatic, like Queen, or Styx, or maybe Meatloaf, it turns out that I am stumped. A music CD is a set of discrete creations that may or may not link together to form a coherent storyline or dialogue. More than often: not. Don’t get me wrong – I love music. I love a plaintive singer/songwriter. I love a thickly layered electronic mix. I love a catchy hook, a well-timed fake ending, a sweeping key-change just as much as the next person. And I can tell you what I think is good (Ray LaMontagne, Hed Kandi, Kelly Clarkson, or Sloane for a start.) I just can’t seem to tell you why. At least not at any great lengths. I would have made a terrible teenager on American Bandstand. “Uh, I like Green Day, but I can’t dance to it.” And so I will have to tell my friend, to tell her friend to tell his friend that I cannot help him out. The task was larger than I.
But speaking of music – I am currently in the throes of a great deal of music envy in general, iPod envy in particular. These little iPods are everywhere now! It’s an iPod invasion. It’s an iPod nation out there! They’re not just up on the billboards, spotted and frozen mid-groove in pink and green and yellow and blue, the pods themselves have actually entered the streets and the subways and the gyms and the parks. People on bikes are wearing them. Business men with briefcases are bopping up Bay St. with them. At my yoga studio, a woman unplugs the iPod earphones from her ears before rolling out her sticky mat. “Pre-meditation tunes,” she says. And I am green with envy!
I want one so bad now that every time I see someone enjoying the benefits of 6 gigabytes of uninterrupted, personally designed playlists I simultaneously feel pain in my chest and butterflies in my stomach. The thought of my whole music collection, completely customized and mixed to my preference, sitting in a handheld device just waiting for me to press “play” thrills me. Imagine: a mix of Ray LaMontagne, Josh Rouse, Mary Lou Lord, Emm Gryner, Sarah Slean and my husband Jason Mraz* for the morning subway ride, just to get my brain functioning. In the evening, mix it up with some Keane and The Shins and maybe even The Killers. Dirty Vegas and Van Dyk for peppy walks through the park. If I ever join a gym again, I could get motivated with Avril or Kelly Clarkson. Or Jennifer Lopez or Britney Spears or Kylie Minogue! (Yes, I like them. Yes, really. I’m serious! Yes, even Jennifer Lopez. Even after the whole Ben Affleck thing. Yes, even Britney. Yes, I know she married a deadbeat, he-capri wearing, classless piece of ****. Yes, I do still like her. Yes, I swear to you I can still sleep at night. No, I’m not ashamed. NO, I won’t apologize!)
The thought that I can’t afford this little piece of heaven breaks my heart.
Apple why have you done this to me? You’ve supplied my demand but priced it completely out of my natural equilibrium! And given the fact that it seems like everybody and their cousin is sporting the contraptions around their necks lately, I’m pretty sure you’re not going to narrow the price gap just for little old me. Let’s make a deal: I’ll give you $40 for one? No? No. Sigh. Okay. I’ll go back to the intermediary technology of my MD player. It’s a gizmo that I love for the fact that it is tiny and the discs hold up to six albums each on them. And they’re completely re-writable. But the problem is this: there are just too many steps involved in maintaining my music collection on MD. I have to go from downloaded MP3 on the computer, to burned CD, to converted MD. That’s three whole steps! In three whole different formats! I’m tripling the memory storage required for my musical data. I’m a huge music hog! The iPod is so much more convenient. And flexible. And cute. And, yeah, right, expensive. That was my point all along.
* In no way is he really my husband.
posted by nerdifer at 5:43 p.m.
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