The first bit of music I ever got was a Kool and the Gang audio cassette. It was the golden nugget in my Christmas stocking. One of my other siblings got Billy Joel's Greatest Hits, which I borrowed indefinitely. Up until then, the only music I had was the grainy stuff slipping out of the car stereo and the wonky notes I generated with my accordian.
By the time compact discs started taking up shelf space in Tower Records, I had amassed a decent collection of audio cassettes. 15, maybe. Why would I want to buy a dumb ol' CD when I've invested so much in reams of thin, glossy tape? I asked myself. I wasn't going to give into the doggone allure of those little silvery music pies.
And then Billy Joel melted in my Volvo. He wasn't the first to go, you understand. Others had been fatally gnawed upon by my greedy cassette player. Still others had been hopelessly cracked. But Billy Joel's demise was cataclysmic. It was time to wake up and join the '90s.
Then I met the man of my dreams. He could also sing (but in tune) all of the lyrics to "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant." AND HE COULD PLAY THEM ON THE PIANO! We decided to get married and become one CD collection.
That's exactly what we did. Eventually, we had so many CDs that we needed to invest in a CD tower. And then a CD binder. Thank heavens for the miracle of 8 cm. polycarbonate plastic discs, we thought. We reckon these audio-encoded wonders will never become obsolete! How were we to know that iTunes would open up it's brilliant little shop on the world wide web?
By the time I purchased my first iTunes AAC file, my honey and I had enough CDs to panel a room. Most of them were playable. But more than a few of them obstinately refused to get past one word or phrase so that the effect was something like this: Hey, hey, sha-la-la . . . Hey, hey, sha-la-la . . . Hey, hey, sha-la-la . . . Hey, hey, sha-la-la . . . Hey, hey, sha-la-la . . . Hey, hey, sha-la-la . . . Hey, hey, sha-la-la . . . Hey, hey, sha-la-la . . . Hey, hey, sha-la-la . . . . Too many of my compact discs were in the twilights of their lives, and I knew that the others were at least beginning to ponder retirement. Instead of luxuritating in the experience of listening to the musical stylings of Toad The Wet Sprocket while wearing my Dr. Martens and sipping my new-fangled beverage called "Starbucks latte," I was apprehensive that this play cycle might usher in the CD's irrevocable downfall. (I had come to understand that a CD's lifespan was not dissimilar to a chihuahua's.)
So here we are, 2000 digitized audio files later. My iTunes library is so expansive that navigating down the list of songs makes my middle finger hurt. (It's my scrolling finger.) I've still got a cabinet full of un-MP3ed CDs, and a somewhere-in-the-garage stash of audio cassettes in various stages of decomposition. But my iTunes page is currently where the audiophile in me resides. And for now, I feel safe from travesties of the melted pop star sort. They say digital files don't degrade. They say my songs will outlive me and my pets.
I really hope so because there's got to be a lifetime limit on how much a person can spend on "Only The Good Die Young."
Billy Joel has a special place in my heart and in my CD player.
ReplyDeleteHe was who all the cool choir kids (shut up, we existed) listened to in high school. And the freshman learned quickly that if you wanted to be accepted, you had better learn all of the words to "She's Got A Way".