I am once again back in my room, typing on my computer. As per usual, I have put on a record to listen to as I type. This week’s pick is Detroit producer Black Noi$e’s Oblivion. With griddy, electronic production, this record is a stand out for me in terms of LP’s by prominent Hip Hop producers.
As one may have guessed, I am a big music lover, specially Hip Hop. Like most things in our lives, we need mediums, we need technology to access what we love, specially if it has become mostly digitized like music has. This got me thinking about this week’s blog. I would like to discuss my particular relationship with music in terms of its digital and analog properties. Do I prefer to listen to music digitally? If not, why is that so?
Above is my lovely record player. I use it almost everyday, it holds a special place in my heart. It has allowed my room to become a sort of small temple of my favorite albums whenever I’m in it. Nevertheless, I would be very surprised to find out that my digital consumption of music is lower than my consumption through vinyl discs. I spend most of my time outside, whether it is on my way to university or just running errands and whatnot. I need to have music bumping at every single minute so I need to use of our corperate overlord’s streaming services
Like many, I use Spotify. I’m not even too sure why I use this platform over others. Perhaps it is just my ignorance, perhaps it is just what I have been doing for so long that I no longer question my use of it. Of course, I feel guilt as I know that Spotify does not properly monetize their artists. For the bigger stars, this is not really a problem. But for smaller artists, it is. This guilt, however, is not enough for me to stop consuming music through streaming services, and instead pay around ten-ish euros to download an artist’s album through something like their websites. At the end of the day, I myself need to selfeshly look after my own interests. Spotify thus offers me a good deal in terms of me as a consumer. I am able to curate my playlists however I want, I can receive recomendations from the telepathic algorythm (or at least its what its supposed to do), and, I can even engage in a fun little game at the end of the year that tells me who I am without needing to confront whatever is floating around in my head!
I am joking to a degree of course, but the gist of my point remains. Consuming music digitally is what is best for us from a consumption point of view. It is what is the most accessible and easy to do. Why do I still choose to waste even more money on vinyl records when this powerful tool rests eagerly in my pocket? Well, I think there are three ways of answering that.
Firstly, I see it as a way of paying my dues to my favorite artists. Many smaller artists make the most profit from merch sale. These smaller artists usually make very nice editions of their vinyl records, so it acts as a bit of a reimbursement between the artist and fan. I can thus feel like I am giving back on whatever I take. This of course doesn’t mean that buying vinyl is more ethical, not at all. At the end of the day, these are rather trivial things and you are free to add any moral value to whatever action you take. Not to mention that record labels also profit from the purchases of records from any of their artists. So at the end of the day, it is not that different. It all depends on so many things that I am frankly not qualified to discuss.
Secondly, I am a material fellow. I like owning stuff, I like physically holding what I love, I like to look at it and say “yeah, I own that”. It makes me feel closer to the music. That is something that the digital can not really offer, not even by buying mp3 files.
Finally, I would say that I enjoy listening to an album as it is rather than listening to random songs that I have thrown into a way too long playlist. I realize that all the options that exist on Spotify are overwhelming to me, I rather discover new music through a record, I’d rather know what I am listening to and how. I have to also admit that I have a bit of a bias against algorythm based stuff so I that is a factor to take in when considering my highly personal opinion on digital vs analog music.
At the end of the day, I am privileged enough to have access to both types of music consumption, I better be grateful about that.
This week’s song rec:
This week I will recomend my favorite track off of Oblivion. It features rapper Earl Sweatshirt who brings a fantastic verse which fits perfectly into the airy experimental boom bap beat that Black Noi$e has cooked up.
Song: Mo(u)rning by Black Noi$e, feat. Earl Sweatshirt.
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