The Fulfillment Of My Dreams

[koganbot]

Tom posted this on his Blue Lines tumblr (the main motive being to make a funny about rolling joints, I think):

The Trade-Off

Things People Did With Albums In 1989

Listen to it privately
Listen to it with friends
Admire the artwork
Read the sleevenotes
Evangelise to friends and acquaintances
Discuss it with friends and acquaintances
Write about it in a zine
Get excited prior to release date
Imagine what it sounds like based on reviews
Find a store that stocks it
Lend it to a friend or borrow it from a friend
Roll joints on it
Display it in your room

Things People Do With Albums In 2009

Listen to it privately
Listen to it with friends
Listen to it with strangers (eg via last.fm)
Read about it on news sites, review sites, Wikipedia
Evangelise and share it with friends, acquaintances and strangers
Discuss it with friends, acquaintances and strangers
Publically review and criticise it
Get excited prior to leak date
Share news of it
Hunt for a leak and judge the veracity of it
Remix tracks
Make fan videos or art
Interact directly with the people who made it
Display it as part of your online presence

Sorry to be self-centered but...

This assumes that in 1989 (1) the beings that reviewed records were not people, (2) that strangers didn't read and comment on each other's fanzines or writing, (3) that people only published friends and acquaintances in their own fanzines or magazines, (4) that people didn't talk to strangers, e.g. in bars or on campus, (5) that reading reviews on paper was only related to imagining what something sounds like, (6) whatever else I forgot.

But given that 2009 has the capacity to do better what I and people like me were already doing in 1989 (even though 2009 isn't as different in kind as that list implies), with many more people doing it and with everybody having the capacity to do it more often, so that 2009 might be considered something of the fulfillment of my 1989 dream,* how come the convo in 2009 isn't smarter than it was in 1989, how come my writing isn't far better now than it was then, how come my ideas haven't developed exponentially rather than circling around the same old same old, how come the music isn't better, etc.?

*1986, actually

Comments

[koganbot]

A half-assed clichéd explanation for the relative strength of 1989 was that because creating a conversation required more effort and the convo occurred less frequently, it attracted more creators and innovators. Of course, the world of 2009 has its own potentially stimulating challenges.

Maybe music criticism just had more that needed saying then than now - which isn't to say that Moggy et al. can't hold their own stacked up against most of what was coming out then, just wondering why they and everyone including me aren't so much further along.