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The forgotten pleasures of analog media

yalereview.org

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Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media

#61

Post by pjerem »

twofornone wrote: post #19

There's also something to be said for physically coming across old analog media and being reminded of its existence, sparked to revisit the memories kept in old home recordings or ancient photographs; I don't think there's any equivalent for digital data stored on some social media site. Digital data is perfect for our throwaway consumerist culture and I lament that this also applies to memories of our own lives.

tbf, this something also works with digital data as long as it’s stored on some physical media you own. I have a hard disk on which I throw random stuff since mostly a decade. There is nothing really important on there. It’s mostly unorganized junk that is probably 99% available on the internet. No files I would ever really need.

But I like to sometimes browse it because a lot of those files are connected to memories. There are some music files on it, some pirated movies that a university friend copied on it. And those dirty xvid and wma files feels like they are really mine.

Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media

#62

Post by wyre »

dfxm12 wrote: post #54
Loughla wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now, in addition to the guy there, you can get additional opinions/recommendations from across the world on message boards, twitter, blogs, wherever, too. I 100% agree with your first statements - the access is way better now than it was. But this sentence is where I absolutely see the problem. Again, I could trust that guy to recommend music because he liked the music . Now, every blog, every tweet, every recommend…

Everything is for sale... including the records the guy at the record store likes. To claim everything else is gamed/astroturfing because of your feeling is pretty disingenuous.

A music blog with affiliate links and ads and SEO is very very different than a conversation with the guy at my local record store. To think they are more similar than different is preposterous.

Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media

#63

Post by leokennis »

I don’t know. Sure, the current state of affairs isn’t perfect. But being able to search for any music anywhere in the world (not limited to the physical media you have on you), having it beamed in pristine digital quality (no worn out cassette) to a pair of wireless earbuds (no half bent wires resulting in only the left earbud working) that also block outside noise (so you can actually hear the music) sure is pleasurable to me.

Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media

#64

Post by fxtentacle »

dfxm12 wrote: post #54
Loughla wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now, in addition to the guy there, you can get additional opinions/recommendations from across the world on message boards, twitter, blogs, wherever, too. I 100% agree with your first statements - the access is way better now than it was. But this sentence is where I absolutely see the problem. Again, I could trust that guy to recommend music because he liked the music . Now, every blog, every tweet, every recommend…

Everything is for sale... including the records the guy at the record store likes. To claim everything else is gamed/astroturfing because of your feeling is pretty disingenuous.

Except that 10 years ago, the guy at the record store was an unaffected college student and he wouldn't give a rats ass about whether his recommendation would increase or decrease sales.

In my opinion, the rise of paid bloggers was what ruined the internet for honest people everywhere.

Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media

#65

Post by fxtentacle »

leokennis wrote: post #63

I don’t know. Sure, the current state of affairs isn’t perfect. But being able to search for any music anywhere in the world (not limited to the physical media you have on you), having it beamed in pristine digital quality (no worn out cassette) to a pair of wireless earbuds (no half bent wires resulting in only the left earbud working) that also block outside noise (so you can actually hear the music) sure is pleasu…

Now the question is: Does pleasurable equal good? I've heard that Heroin is really pleasurable while you are still high on it. ^_^

Also, my personal experience with Deezer was that their app is so horribly buggy that copying MP3s to an old player and physically connecting the cinch cable turned out to be much more reliable.

Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media

#66

Post by dfxm12 »

fxtentacle wrote: post #64
dfxm12 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is for sale... including the records the guy at the record store likes. To claim everything else is gamed/astroturfing because of your feeling is pretty disingenuous.

Except that 10 years ago, the guy at the record store was an unaffected college student and he wouldn't give a rats ass about whether his recommendation would increase or decrease sales. In my opinion, the rise of paid bloggers was what ruined the internet for honest people everywhere.

Or he was the owner of the store trying to make a sale, or he was friends with the musicians and trying to make a sale. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Paid bloggers sounds awfully similar to the old payola scheme. It's really nothing new in the music industry...

Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media

#67

Post by dfxm12 »

wyre wrote: post #62
dfxm12 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is for sale... including the records the guy at the record store likes. To claim everything else is gamed/astroturfing because of your feeling is pretty disingenuous.

A music blog with affiliate links and ads and SEO is very very different than a conversation with the guy at my local record store. To think they are more similar than different is preposterous.

I didn't say they were the same. Just because a blog as ads or affiliate links, that doesn't mean it's astroturfing or gamed. Of course, the ad filled blogs probably got their cue from mags like NME, Rolling Stone, etc.

Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media

#68

Post by leokennis »

fxtentacle wrote: post #65
leokennis wrote: post #63

I don’t know. Sure, the current state of affairs isn’t perfect. But being able to search for any music anywhere in the world (not limited to the physical media you have on you), having it beamed in pristine digital quality (no worn out cassette) to a pair of wireless earbuds (no half bent wires resulting in only the left earbud working) that also block outside noise (so you can actually hear the music) sure is pleasu…

Now the question is: Does pleasurable equal good? I've heard that Heroin is really pleasurable while you are still high on it. ^_^ Also, my personal experience with Deezer was that their app is so horribly buggy that copying MP3s to an old player and physically connecting the cinch cable turned out to be much more reliable.

It might depend on the person.

When I was 14 with a Minidisc I had around 15 discs I’d regularly listen to. Couldn’t afford any more.

Later I expanded to a ~300 CD collection which I also put on my iPod.

Now I have access to a gazillion songs, but my Apple Music “library” is still less than 500 albums.

I spend 95% of my listening time with those 500 albums. I have never asked for or sought any “suggestion” from the Apple Music app.

However in case there’s something new I want to listen to (I read a review, I heard a song on TV I’m interested in) I have it right there, legally in perfect quality. Don’t need to buy a CD and rip it to iTunes and send it to my iPod or worse, record it in real-time to a Minidisc.

So I’m still not convinced I’m currently “missing out” on anything from the 90’s/00’s.

Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media

#69

Post by nomel »

shuntress wrote: post #10
oneforty4 wrote: post #2

This is an interesting read and I find the author's observations rather relatable. Some of my friends really, really prefer streaming and that's great! But it never quite agreed with me for some of the reasons I think are given here. I often find that there's a tendency to endlessly navigate a streaming service just to find something to watch. Maybe it's an overabundance of choice or maybe its just that algorithms an…

The "infinite browsing" still happened in physical stores though, of course, not quite to the same scale and it's a different sort of experience because you had to leave your house. I more-or-less agree with the point in the article. Knowing you have less access to something can help make you more conscious about your decision.

The biggest problem with browsing at a music store is that the only way to guess what it sounded like was by looking at the song names, cover art, and which section it was in in the ridiculously imprecise categorization for the "genre" it was in. I spent way too much money on terrible music with this game.

With Spotify, I can actually find new music and artists, without going broke, and without relying on the, usually fairly limited, suggestions from others. I have zero interest in artificially limiting the music I'll be exposed to, just to make that limited, and potentially undesirable, selection seem better than it actually is. I love music. I definitely don't want to get stuck with a few albums on repeat.

Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media

#70

Post by rotexo »

999900000999 wrote: post #13

Another thing not mentioned is the fun in finding media itself. I went out with a girl I met at a record store once, and I’ve met several musicians when I’m out buying music. When you can get everything beamed directly to your house, you miss out on so many adventures. I imagine many marriages originated from chance encounters at Blockbuster. Instead of some cool college student suggesting an old 80’s film, Netflix t…

Agreed. In the digital realm, the closest I have ever come to the feeling of browsing at Waterloo records on 6th and Lamar in Austin with my brothers has been splurging on bandcamp fridays during the pandemic, posting my haul on ig, then also picking up whatever looks interesting in my friends’ hauls.
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