Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? A Personal Reflection on the Slow Demise of the Physical Record

“CDs, as a physical product, are almost finished. Basically it’s going to be “Wide World of Online.”” – Jan Hammer

Looking back, my childhood was fairly normal.

I never got into much trouble as a kid at school, I did what I was told (most of the time) and I never had to endure any painful emotional moments such as my parents splitting or a runaway pet. It was a relatively normal, scar free existance. In fact the worst thing that I probably endured were consistent re-runs of 21 Jump Street and Miami Vice, which were somewhat an obsession of my mother between 1986 & 1991.  In fact, I remember my Mum keeping Don Johnson’s album “Let it Roll” and “Escape from Television” by Jan Hammer in our Nissan Bluebird, which were played continuously on the tape player wherever we went! It was so torturous to my younger self at the time that I still wonder why those particular songs were never used as part of some Cold War torture treatment.

As a child I would come home from primary school, go up to my room and play my

Don Johnson – Horrific

favourite vinyl records. Be it Bon Jovi, Queen, Michael Jackson or “Do the Bart Man”, I loved pretending that I was some rock & roll star, brushing up on my air guitar skills and singing at the top of my voice. Sure it’s fairly embarrassing looking back but I would expect that the majority of you lot reading this did the exactly the same at some point in your lives. Go on, admit it!

Later on it was tapes and CD’s, Oasis & Blur, Pulp & Suede. The format and artists changed, as was changing from an air guitar to a real one but nevertheless, music, as an art form, was the single constant in the equation.

Music was a huge conversational topic among my friends and we always used to swap tapes and CD’s. I used to enjoy creating mix-tapes and I still do! It’s a relaxing but challenging past-time. I would give them as gifts to family and friends at that point in my life where I was too young to earn a wage. I felt it was a personal touch, something you made which you felt reflected the recipient, something you felt they would appreciate. Music was very much a personal thing, something to be embraced, communicated and shared.

Another favourite past time of mine, and something that I still enjoy doing to this very day, is visiting a record shop and browsing through the music section. To me there is something magical in admiring the artwork, awaiting what gems you might find. I found so many great albums over the years doing exactly that, be it Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix in my younger days or Liam Frost & The Slowdown Family or 13th Floor Elevators in my late teens or what have you. To me, it is a treasure trove of secrets just waiting to be discovered!

Following the recent plight of HMV Plc it saddens me that potentially in the very near future, the physical age of music could be over as a sellable product as the digital age comes up trumps over its rival. I’ve said before how much pain the man inflicted on my ears as a kid but Jan Hammer speaks the truth when it comes to the future of the physical record. As a medium of musical storage, the CD represents an age where mobile phones could only dial numbers, where television only had four channels and the internet could only be accessed when someone wasn’t making a telephone call. Lets face it, CD’s are too large to carry about (remember the Sony Walkman? I had the hideous bright orange shock resistant model – stylish); they take up far too much space; damaged far too easily and so on and so forth.

Technology is something that allows the objects in our lives to evolve and makes our existence easier. As I type this I have more access to songs than I ever had before; I’m currently listening my “February ’13” playlist on Spotify; I have the majority of albums I have ever bought in my ITunes library, in a couple of clicks I can be listening to songs on Bandcamp and Soundcloud, while a couple of clicks later I can be ordering the new Frightened Rabbit album from Amazon or any number of online retailers. It is all reminiscent of microwaveable dinners. It’s convenient. In fact it’s far too convenient and just like microwavable dinners, is it really the best thing for us?

Thinking back to when I worked in record stores it is no real surprise that HMV are in trouble. I remember working at Our Price in 2001 during the weeks leading up to Christmas. The store was chock-full throughout the day, the tills would be going at a manic speed and queues would almost be out the door. In the years that followed, the store got quieter, and quieter, and quieter until the time I left retail in 2007, the Christmas rush seemed just like any other Saturday afternoon.  During that period the shift to online retailing and downloads was already apparent and the truth of the matter is that stores were far too slow to capitalise on this shift in the market place. As always Apple got in there first.

With ITunes currently celebrating its 25th billionth download last week, the power of the online market is staggering! 15,000 songs are downloaded every minute on ITunes with a staggering 19 billion downloads in the last four years alone. That does not include the numbers from other online retailers like Amazon and Spotify.  Simply put, traditional retailers cannot compete with those numbers. It is nonsensical to expect people in this day and age to sift through countless numbers of CD racks to source a particular album when they can simply type “Motown’s  Greatest Hits” into a search bar and be greeted with 674 results on Amazon. For up and coming bands, marketing is easier than ever before. A couple of quid here and there and their music is available to buy worldwide in around 10 minutes! It’s a crazy world that we live in that’s rotates on speed and accessibility.

But like the microwave, it has made us lazy. Worse than that it has ripped out the soul of the music as an industry, and music as an entity. On the rare occasion when I purchase web based music I just buy the songs. That’s it! They are individually downloadable files that are stored on my computer somewhere and then transferred to my IPod or what have you. It is a process that requires little thought and as quick as your computer allows you, I could be listening to my new purchase on the way to work. Happy days! However, as quick as I downloaded said album it can easily replaced by something else or deleted entirely. In other words, they are disposable – a lifeless commodity who’s only purpose is to provide a source of entertainment for as long, or as short, as you require it.

In contrast to the physical album – be it vinyl, CD, tape or 8-track – what you have is something that can be treasured for all time.  The whole process of listening to a CD or record is engaging. The album artwork is thought provoking, the sleeve notes are a gift to the reader directly from the artist, the sound of the record is usually how the artist intended it to sound. If you download an album, do you really care what the artwork looks like? Probably not. However the album artwork of a record is almost as important as the songs themselves. Would the cover of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” be as iconic if it were a digital download? I think not. In fact I doubt anyone would give a shit.  My point is that the physical record, as a package, is something that the artist has put their heart and soul into for our enjoyment, and not just into the songs stored within.

In my view the record is like a book. A sacred document. Something to be cherished and valued. Humans have a tendency to attach memories to such things and therefore, find it very difficult to throw away. However do you think those same people will face the same dilemma over hitting the “DEL” button?

I received a package the other day which contained Model Jet Pilot’s excellent debut album

“Welcome to the Future” however will the record fbe in our future for much longer?

“Welcome to the Future” from their lead singer Ross Hamilton on vinyl. Within the package was a set of 3D glasses and a letter saying “This is the way the record is meant to be”. I couldn’t believe it! An album called “Welcome to the Future”, delivered by post, on vinyl with old school 3D glasses! It’s something of a paradox! What struck me was the difference the package as a whole made to the album. Before I received the album all I heard was the stream through MJP’s Bandcamp page. The album was great, as I’m sure you have heard me saying before. However owning a physical copy of the album, especially in vinyl, gives a certain substance to it, a bond if you will. It changes the emphasis of the music entirely and for the better too.

The same could be said when I first purchased an orignal 1967 copy of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band” on vinyl. Sure I heard the album on CD and through my MP3 player a thousand times over, but listening to it on vinyl was like listening to it for the first time all over again. It was chillingly exciting to listen to the original album the way The Beatles intended for it to be heard. From the title track to “A Day in the Life”, and from the artwork to the little cut out figures of the fab four inside, it was an exhilarating experience.  For me, it’s the same for any CD or record – it’s the experience that counts.

I accept that the digital age is truly upon on us. I accept that you cannot stand in the way of technology and lets be brutally honest here, the mini-disk was a piss poor evolution of the CD. What does disturb me, at the time of my life where in the not too distant future I may have kids of my own, is that when they grow up it is likely they will not have the experience of flicking through the CD racks, reading the sleeve notes and creating a collection their father could be proud of. Instead, it is likely that all they will experience is a super-fast broadband cable and that depressing delete button, all too accessible beneath their fingertips.

PS. My thanks to Ross for sending through the album. It is greatly appreciated and will take pride and place in my vinyl collection.