AllyF and the vinyl optimists

Published
by
Tom Nuttall
on July 18, 2007
in Arts and culture and Elsewhere on the web
.

In the second in an occasional series (read the first here) in which First Drafts brings your attention to stellar comments in the blogosphere that may otherwise fall under your radar, do read this delightful response from one “AllyF” to a well-intentioned but dreary post on the Guardian’s Comment is Free site, in which one Will Hodgkinson attempts to extrapolate from news of a recent uptick in sales of 7″ singles evidence of a great vinyl comeback—a record is “a gilded chalice holding the holy water of music,” and so on. Shining like a crazy diamond through the murky hi-fi geekdom of the other comments on the post, AllyF both nails the eternal, unflinching optimism of vinyl junkies (for a rather more sceptical take on the state of “physical” recorded music, look out for the cover story in the August issue of Prospect, published next week) and makes us laugh very hard.

1 Responses to “AllyF and the vinyl optimists”

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  • 1 dmoore
    July 21, 2007 at 4:08 am

    The ‘return of vinyl’ discussion is certainly one that recurs with an amusing regularity. Yet the surrounding debate around the merits of various formats is a classic case of medium over message. It is a fetishism of the carrier rather than the content, which overlooks the wider social circumstances of how music is actually experienced today.

    Technological developments in reproduction continue to create objective distinctions between formats, in terms of fidelity and accessibility. But subjective opinions as to the merits of each, fail to understand how these developments affect the manner in which recorded material is listened to, and enjoyed, in everyday situations.

    The omnipresence of music players today (iPods, computers, phones, as well as CD players and turntables) has lead to an unprecedented new form of mobility for music. For better or worse, this digital democratisation has radically altered the audio-scape we experience on a daily basis. This has not only meant a change in the places and times we listen to music, but also the ways in which we listen to it, and consequently the relevance of fidelity in reproduction.

    We now have technology to produce recordings which surpass our hearing abilities, but this is somewhat meaningless when a new generation of music consumers are quite happy to listen to tracks on phones in the street or on buses, at what is very often an extremely low level of fidelity. Likewise in the supposed golden age of vinyl, there were plenty of people who were quite content to listen to lo-fi recordings from records and radio on cheap cassette players. In these instances the formats do not diminish the experience or enjoyment of music, but rather provide evidence that content and context are the prime determinants in how music is actually consumed.

    Also as listening is generally a distracted activity, it is never immune to both audio and visual interference, whether in the home, workplace, club or at a show. These factors are time and place specific, and whilst they may be disruptive to any notion of ‘pure’ listening, they nevertheless feed into our experiences of the music we hear, both positively and negatively. They often become part of our memories of music, and these situations and associations consequently play a role in the way we accord value to music. The enjoyment of music relates to time, place, people and experiences.

    The format discussion is about products not experiences. The issues surrounding it are largely aesthetic and subjective, relating more to lifestyle choices and generational attitudes, rather than actual sounds or situations.

    The plurality of current formats represents the diverse strategies employed by the music industry to distribute it’s products to as wide a range of consumers as possible, and ultimately generate maximum revenue. Debating value judgements about the superiority of one format or another, generally tends to neglect this factor, and also the many ways that music is experienced and enjoyed as a cultural medium.

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