My craven craving has caved-in

Today I realized that a lifelong obsession has slipped away. Never, never, have I been in a room filled with boxes filled with old LPs, where I had no desire to flip through them, much less consider buying some old mint copy of early Family music.

After all, I have most of the music I love in a tiny computer about the size of a deck of cards, called an iPod (it's pretty miraculous - ever hear of it?). It was in my ear when I first walked through the WESU Record Fair this morning at Wesleyan, and I only took it out when Ben started spinning music.

There were far fewer CDs in the room, and maybe had there been more, I may have been more interested, but I've released the analog fallacy, and realize that it's far simpler to pursue music I love on a digital basis, right here at the keyboard.

I should have guessed it was going to happen today when I offloaded thirty of my long-held LP on the WESU table for the station to sell. I never did play that second Boomtown Rats album much anyway, and I doubt I played the New Order LP even once.

It was all a bit of a relief to walk out of the room empty-handed, one more demon behind me.

The Record Fair was a big success, thank god, because unlike me, not everyone has dispatched of their vinyl fixation.

You don't know what you've got till it's gone

Thanks to Karen Schrempf for a great article on Joni Mitchell's forthcoming album. It's wonderful to see Mitchell's rediscovery of her muse, and interesting that she's turning to Starbucks to promote it.

There's no doubt the music world is changing. CD sales are faltering. Stores that sell recorded music exclusively are disappearing.

And Starbucks, which now has it's own label, has had tremendous success with the handful of artists it markets through its high-priced coffee outlets. In fact, Starbucks has been so successful that it now has it's own label, Hear Music, which has signed near-geriatric artists like Mitchell and Paul McCartney.

I'm old school. I like the CD and the package, the lyrics, the photos, the artwork. I've grown to love the concept of an album of songs (called an album because in the days of 78 rpm's, a collection of disks was held in an album very much like a photo album). My son has jettisoned most of his CDs once they're burned on his hard drive, and often he buys songs as files.

It's still not clear how record companies plan to continue to make money in the future. Or how artists can make money on the music they create. Small artists can tour like mad, and expect to earn a respectable income for all their hours on the road. And big artists can fill the stadiums. Question is, where will the big artists come from, Starbucks?

The last bastion of hit records is country music, whose fans were the last to give up on the audiocassette. Perhaps there's something to be learned from C&W where radio play still has an effect, the music video is still coveted, and the artists still understand fan appreciation.