Technology and music. Music and technology.
These days those two terms seem to go better together than peanut butter and
jelly or at least better than Spring House Brewing's Lil' Gruesome Peanut
Butter Jelly Stout, but I am getting off topic. As someone who enjoys
listening and discovering music on multiple mediums (for example, I am still
listening to cassettes), sometimes you just cannot pull up your Shazam app
quickly enough on your smart-phone to figure out what that song is in that one
commercial. But new music is all around us and of course it is no longer
limited to specific models.
Collectors of Sir Paul McCartney’s music may have to add a
new format to their collections of music by The Beatles. McCartney’s
recent major project is the score for “Destiny”, the highly anticipated video
game from Bungie and Activision, that was released earlier this month.
This is not exactly a huge stretch since Mr. McCartney has written four
full-length orchestral scores, and several shorter classical pieces, since
1990, and has produced several albums of electronica under the name Fireman, but did “baby boomers” ever
think that they would be shooting, looting and role playing on their
PlayStation 4 or Xbox One while listening to “Macca”?
I was also reading the New York Times this past weekend
(thanks to my neighbors) and I came
across an article written by Ben Sisario that states Thom Yorke (Radiohead’s lead singer), “tried another unusual approach by releasing
his solo album, “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes,” through BitTorrent, a technology for
transferring large files over the Internet. The data “bundle” that included the
album cost $6.00, and in a statement, Mr. Yorke described the move as a test of
a new way for artists to release their work online”. With sales of CDs
falling and vinyl growing, this avenue seems to be as good as any for the
future of collecting music, but will fans of The Beatles be showing off their
copy of the video game “Destiny” and will a listener be able to read the liner
notes of “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes”?
Unfortunately, I would agree with David Holmes’ statement from PandoDaily that “music
appreciation has not effectively translated to the digital space”, but this is
not because people do not want to share their tastes anymore. Taking
pride in one’s music collection has been around since the days of vinyl, but
with the continued development of technology it is quite possible that you will
walk into my house and not immediately get a sense of what type of music I
listen to. I really enjoy being able to reach into my CD collection and
being able to throw on the 1995 self-titled album by Sweet Vine or the more recent studio
album by the British band Fink, titled “Hard Believer”.
Only time will tell, but I believe all of this development
in music sounds like a good idea (pun intended), and let’s hope losing your
Pandora wifi-connection before you are about to run a 10K is the only wrinkle
as we move closer to 2015.
Thanks for reading.
