IF MUSIC BE THE FOOD OF SLACKERS....

WHAT is the happening to music? Downloading is having an impact and I'm not sure it's all good.

THERE was something about owning a vinyl album. The artwork and sleeve notes, the credits, lyrics (sometimes) and information all helped to create value in the experience of the music. Bands recognised this very early: think Sgt Pepper, but record companies now seem to be rushing to desert those very principles.

IN the end this means there is far more focus on the music. Hold on, you might say, the whole thing has always been about the music. Well, yes, but not solely about music. My point is that a band or musician is rarely just about the music. Think Dylan, think Beatles, Pink Floyd, Robbie Williams , Sinead O’Connor, Kaiser Chiefs or anyone you care to mention. When you read those names, I bet something came into your head that was visual: the album cover maybe, or something to do with the artist. Which I think says that our experience of artists is more than just their music, and the whole experience of record owning is enhanced by all the extras. Think of the world class art that you hold when you pick up Sgt Pepper. Now ask yourself about the artwork of the latest McCartney album. How does it compare? I can’t tell you a thing about the new McCartney album: his thoughts, who plays on it, what the sleeve looks like, because I downloaded it, and I have to rely on the music giving me the whole experience. And with that album it just doesn’t make it. I feel disappointed, but know the whole experience would be enhanced by the extras, which would help me focus on and understand his creation.

OK you say, go and buy the CD. Sure I could, but it’s about £13. And perhaps if I’d been able to get at it for free or cheap on the internet, I would then go and buy the CD and all the concomitants that go with it. But there is no way I’m going to spend £7.99 on iTunes, and then another £13 at a CD store for it. And nor am I, anymore, going to go to CD stores and buy expensive albums on spec. I’ve got dozens of CDs I’ve bought on the say-so of reviews or recommendations that are disappointing.

I really feel that the music industry has to sort itself out. How would it be if they let us at music really cheaply and encourage exploration and diversity, and then give us the collector’s versions to buy at a fair price, with all the added value that I am banging on about?

NEVER MIND THE QUALITY
IS downloading also leading to a diminishing of music quality? I know not everyone shares this view, but bear with me. I have more than 600 albums, by artists from Air to Warren Zevon. And I don’t love all of them: there are plenty of mistakes, even by artists to whom I am devoted. But each is a piece of work, considered and laboured over (I exclude label created compilations), and deserves our attention. And what is more, many album tracks are more complex, longer and more “difficult” than the promotional singles. Some albums don’t warrant a single at all, but the work is still accessible to a varying degree. And that’s where I’m coming from. Often the simple, easy to hear hit tracks are those that wane and don’t stand the test of time: history is littered with one, two or three hit wonders, whereas the more complicated material buried in an album can often become the favourite track. And the great thing is that almost certainly we won’t all agree.

WHAT’S your favourite Beatles track. I don’t think anyone I now has the same fave as anyone else I know. We’re all different.

BUT downloading music means that quick to learn, easily accessible tracks will be most popular, and soon I can see bands not being able to get their album material to shift because the downloaders will only buy three or four of their tracks, and so much great music will be lost. And that’s a shame.

ART should appeal to several senses at once: emotional, intellectual and visual, not just on the level of 'I need something with red in it to go with the curtains', and I suppose I feel that about music. So I say again; give us access to albums at a cheap rate, but make it that we have to get the whole work, not track by track in all too easily digested slices, and we’ll repay you by buying and listening to much much more.

SPREADING the word works: I lend people albums, and then when I get them back they go and buy the work if they like it, and if they don't they save their money for something else they will like more. Seems a good model to me.

Let me know what you think. And if you agree, why not take a look at my links.