Letters to the Editor
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Nice one, Farhad
I like the commentary but I'm not convinced that you mean Jobs should not have invented the iPod.
Perhaps that very syndrome you've described here, the ever-shortening attention span, is also tightening up your expectations for the iPod itself?
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No need to change the iPod - change the way you use your iPod
I, too, have had Farhad Manjoo's problem: too much music, too little time. My iPod, too, suffered from having the same tracks repeated ad nauseum. So I came up with a solution - it's clunky, but it works for me.
1) I delete all songs from previously played albums off my "Party Shuffle" list.
2) I move 10 albums whose songs are listed on my slimmed-down Party Shuffle into a special folder.
3) Whenever I crave music, I turn to that folder first.
4) Rinse, repeat.
Voila! My backlist of unplayed music is rapidly dropping.
You, too, can do this.
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The author's complaint is not really about the iPod...
... it's about himself and his lack of discipline when it comes to music. He's upset that the iPod has removed the artificial barriers that he used for support. Now he's faced with having to deal with his own bad habits, instead of having them obscured by clunky tech.
Really. Before the iPod, how many people had libraries that consisted of more than 500 regularly played tracks? I suspect that the number was radically less. People had albums they wore out playing. So are people really spending less time focusing on the music, or is just that, having access to far more, the percentage is less?
All of the author's complaints could be solved by being a tad more aware and a tad more proactive. The real imperfections in the iPod lie -- pardon the heresy -- in its design, not its social powers. Though adequate when launched, the interface is radically unpowered for today, when people really are carrying around their entire music library. One cannot write enough exorciating its flat-directory playlists (a mind-boggling "feature", as iTunes correctly offers a hierarchy option, that the iPod -- despite claims of being so seamlessly integrated -- flattens and throws away). And of course, the lack of a queue ("on the go" playlists are not a true substitute) is staggering -- and will be preserved forever, due to the same "We're perfect" orthodox zealotry that has fossilized the one-button mouse and inflected double-click Hell on mankind.
Perfect? Far from it -- but not because it's "too hard" to find and appreciate new music.
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Why does Salon publish this shit?
If Farhad does suffer from actual ADD and OCD, his article is nothing more that a bitchy diatribe about his own medically-diagnosed conditions and how a specific piece of technology doesn't fit his needs. That makes it his problem, not the i-pod's.
If Farhad does not actually have ADD and OCD, well then, fuck you, Farhad, because it's not funny to all the people who actually deal with ADD and OCD on a daily basis. Not funny at all.
And might I add that if Farhad has the money to be able to afford this expensive piece of technology and all the 'stuff' that goes with it, let alone the major bucks needed to accumulate that much music...and now he's written a 3-page piece complaining about having too much music...well, fuck you again, sir. That thousand dollars could have been much better spent. Try charity.
By the way, I don't own an i-pod. I'm lucky I still have a turntable, and grateful I own a CD player and that my computer will play mp3s. I'll be damned if I'm going to drop another thousand just so I can put in my earphones in public and essentially tell the rest of humanity I don't really care to interect with them.
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commodity fetishism
Maybe someday Levy, and Manjoo, will actually be able to have sex with money.
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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