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-- AdamGold? - 03 Apr 2008 |
| | Sources of Intangible Loss to Individuals |
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< | The scope of this paper does not intent to create an exhaustive list nor to address what intangible gains digital acquisition may offer. Instead, it seeks to examine three sources of loss to individual listeners which are easily obscured in the race to embrace music downloading. |
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> | The scope of this paper does not intend to create an exhaustive list nor to address what intangible gains digital acquisition may offer. Instead, it seeks to examine three sources of loss to individual listeners which are easily obscured in the race to embrace music downloading. |
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1) The Loss of the “Record Store” |
| | Movies such as “High Fidelity” and “Empire Records” showcase the value of personal exchanges, such as the sharing of stories or suggestions between patrons during the purchasing process, which give added meaning to the listening experience. Intangible value derived merely from the physical acquisition experience itself is lost due to the absence of human contact through digital acquisition. |
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< | For example, a suggestion from a ex-hippie store owner may not only carry more weight with a rock fan than reading remote message board suggestions, it may be part of enjoying the musical experience itself. Thus, a listening of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963) might be more thoroughly appreciated by a young consumer in light of listening to the hippie’s tales of Dylan’s importance to the political movements he experienced first hand. Similarly, online discussions via message boards might not be able to adequately replace the value of body language in an in-person debate about whether Clapton or Hendrix was a better guitarist. In this sense, it might be hard to replace the record store as the locus for fan related interactions with online forums filled with anonymous personalities behind avatars. |
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> | For example, a suggestion from an ex-hippie store owner may not only carry more weight with a rock fan than reading remote message board suggestions, it may be part of enjoying the musical experience itself. Thus, a listening of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963) might be more thoroughly appreciated by a young consumer in light of listening to the hippie’s tales of Dylan’s importance to the political movements he experienced first hand. Similarly, online discussions via message boards might not be able to adequately replace the value of body language in an in-person debate about whether Clapton or Hendrix was a better guitarist. In this sense, it might be hard to replace the record store as the locus for fan related interactions with online forums filled with anonymous personalities behind avatars. |
| | I concede that many in-person facets of the acquisition process may have online equivalents, but such equivalents, lacking the sounds, colors and textures of a record store, may not preserve the complete musical experience as it stands today. |
| | Second, viewing an album cover online can inhibit a consumer’s ability to have a proper first impression of album cover art. Cover art is usually carefully chosen by the artist and it is, in most cases, meant to add a visual component to compliment the audio portion of the experience to complete one unitary work of art. A consumer only gets one first impression and a case can be made that the shock of walking into a record store and finding oneself face to face with a naked 13 year old girl on the cover of Blind Faith’s self titled 1969 album can not be approximated by finding a small jpeg image of the same picture on itunes. Further, many commercial websites have strict decency standards which preclude some artist’s album art from being properly displayed whereas many independent record stores do not follow such guidelines. |
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< | Finally, a physical album is a permanent and tangible piece of art. Downloading music does not allow an individual to open an album jacket and view lyrics, liner notes, and credits, nor does it protect her from a hard drive crash which wipes out her music collection. |
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> | Finally, a physical album is a permanent and tangible piece of art. Downloading music does not allow an individual to open an album jacket and view lyrics, liner notes and credits, nor does it protect her from a hard drive crash which wipes out her music collection. |
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3) The loss of the musical album |
| | Taken alone, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” cannot approximate the full experience of listening to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in its entirety. Perhaps the Beatles intended “Lucy” to prepare the listener, sonically or mentally, to appreciate the final, single note of “A Day in the Life,” which lasts for 42 seconds; a feat much harder to accomplish without the benefit of album context. |
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< | Further, online sources allow individuals to download a single song off concept albums, works built around a single developing theme, which were expressly meant to be appreciated as an entirety according to the artists. Downloading a single song from The Who’s “Tommy” or Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” is tantamount to watching only one scene from The Phantom of the Opera; it may be fun, but it does not convey the full experience as designed by its creator. |
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> | Further, online sources allow individuals to download a single song from a concept album, a work built around a single developing theme, which was expressly meant to be appreciated in its entirety according to the artist. Downloading a single song from The Who’s “Tommy” or Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” is tantamount to watching only one scene from The Phantom of the Opera; it may be fun, but it does not convey the full experience as designed by its creator. |
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Conclusion |