The Heap

I love music. I love music to bits. And now my love for music is - literally - in bits.

And bytes.

Remember the thrill of vinyl? You went to the record store and asked for today's brand new Smiths release - on 12" if available - and you took it home. You pored over the (huge!) sleeve, looking for detail, insights into the workings of the mind of the mighty Morrisey. Why Terence Stamp on the cover? Why Joe Dallesandro? What did the cover do for the song?

Then there was the whole ritual of playing the damn thing. You gently tipped the sleeve on its side, the inner sleeve slipping to your palm. You turned that upside down and dextrously removed the artifact. Taking great care not to get prints on the grooves, you managed the single with your fingertips on the label and the edge resting in the gap between thumb and forefinger.
You balanced the edge with your other hand, and pressed the central hole onto the spindle of your Garrard deck.

This is where the real work began.

You'd set the deck to play and watch the dust and fibres reflect on the skin of your newly-spinning disk. You'd remove your anti-stat cloth from its protective pouch and press the slightly moist chamois against the grooves, oh-so-gently. Finally, with a lasting line of grime on your cloth as proof of cleanliness, you'd use the little lever to raise the arm holding the cartridge. Happy at last in the knowledge that you were about to get absolute, perfect sound fidelity from a £1 lump of petroleum, you allowed the needle to gently wreck itself on the outer edge of the disk, before settling into the groove.

Your song of choice was about to play.

Compare and contrast.

I bought the latest Mercury Rev CD last week. I saw them on tour last year, thought joyous thoughts, and determined that I absolutely must buy that CD when marked down 75% in the dying throes of my local Zavvi.

I got it home, removed the CD from the sleeve, placed it in my computer drive, and let iTunes do its wonderful, rippledy stuff. 6 minutes later out pops the CD which I filed, fairly confident in the knowledge that it will never actually be used again.

I like Mercury Rev and I loved their gig. So why won't the CD be used again?

Because I listen to music on Shuffle / random / your choice here. Let's call it Radio Steve. I rip, I play, but I always play shuffle.

I have about 400 ripped CD's, so the odds against the new Mercury Rev coming up are 400-1 at least.

I may as well have tossed it on the Heap of all my existing CD's, picked one at random and hoped ity was the new Mercury Rev.

I'm sure it's a great album but I will almost certainly never listen to it as an entity. Odd tracks will surface at random times and, as happened with the Arcade Fire two years ago for me, one will pop into my conscious and say "F*ck me - that's extraordinary."

And that's why my musical life is in bits. I listen to my MP3 player all the time. I use the living room stereo maybe, once a week. Going by the current rate, I'll play that Mercury Rev album on my home stereo in 2019. And I'll think "Damn! That hangs together well..."

So is it just me? Or does your new music go on the Heap as well...