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• Sunday, October 22, 2006 07:56 PM

  Obviously your milage varies

  I've had an iPod for a little more than two years now and I love it. I do. I should note that I'm a PC user and not generally a Mac fan depsite using both from about '91 to '98.

  I also am a huge music fan, so probably not typical in any sense. My 40GB iPod has been filled with some 8,000 songs (I don't use the lowest sample rate) and I lust for the 80GB which I'm sure I will quickly fill and begin lusting for the release some two years down the line of a 160GB iPod.

  I also rarely listen to my iPod on headphones. As an unprepentant suburbanite, I listen in the car while commuting, and I listen to my music collection at home on my computer while pursuing my second graduate degree. Being able to take the iPod and it's thousands of songs on road trips has been a huge source of joy in the last two years.

  What has changed for me since I've digitized my music collection is:

  1.) I listen more to old favorites I haven't heard in ages. They're on my computer, they come up on random. I find myself putting on an album and listening start to finish because I've heard a Dylan song I haven't heard in years.

  2.) I listen more to new music because I've sought more things out in the two years since I've gotten an iPod than in the prior 4 years combined. It's been easier to find things due to iTunes, Salon's audiofile, and less (ahem) legitimate sources.

  3.) I've bought more new CD's (and attended more concerts) in the last two years because I've been turned on to new artists through places mentioned above and when the artists release a new album, I want to support them by purchasing. And having the option of listening or encoding my music at a higher sampling rate.

  4.) Due to the challenges of programing the iPod while driving, I've tended to keep the most recent 4-5 CD's I've purchased in the car to absorb more fully before letting them lose into the depth of the iPod. As noted in point 3 though - there seems to be a more regular flow of these.

  Three other notes:

  I REGULARLY program an "Owe Time To" playlist of the recent purchases. I often turn here first to listen. Like the writers above, I would urge Farhad to use his technology differently.

  When originally shopping, the superiority of iTunes over other mp3 player interfaces and systems of managing a music library was a selling factor. I do now wish I could tweak iTunes somewhat more (5 stars is not enough to adequately delinate favorites amongst 8,000 songs. What about a percentage system?). I'm sure I could find other quibbles as well. But I do love the return of the artwork in iTunes' newest revision.

  Finally, if I decry anything about the digitization of music, it is the loss of the album as a conceptual form of art and the compression Farhad mentions in the early paragraphs of his essay. However, I think it is important to note that these deletious effects are most prevelant only upon the most popular pablum pushed by the major labels. Independent artits and labels (as well as the occasional major label enigma like Wilco or Ray LaMontagne) still are creating works that matter sonically and conceptually. I don't think Johnny Cash's recent work (which Farhad is clearly familiar with) has been over-compressed so all the instruments sound the same. How the economics of the music industry will eventually realign with the new centruy remain to be seen, but I do not personally forsee a diminishment of artistic choices to enjoy as a music fan.

  Ian

  —AlterEthan Read AlterEthan's other letters
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