I Quit Digital Music

I just read somewhere that iTunes has now sold like a Billion songs. I was in love early with the iPod and how it’s made music accessible, blah blah blah.

But I’m no longer buying digital music. Why would you? It’s completely absurd to be honest with you. What the hell happened to us? iTunes is great software but digital music does not work for music lovers. It just doesn’t. And mainly for one reason: there’s nothing there. Nothing to hold, smell, pass on, collect. Digital music is vapor, period.

I get why it took hold. The low price point, the ability to just buy the 3 good songs on the album or better yet rip them for free. The compilation CD replacing the high speed dub tape that used to be a work of art requiring an entire weekend to put together even with the high speed dub and Mega Bass on the boom box.

But for a music lover digital music will come to be a regret. The same way you wish you didn’t ditch your jewel cases in favor of the Case Logic because it was easier transport for college. Digital music should have failed the same way eBooks did. The reason it didn’t, there are less true music lovers than book readers. If anything iTunes has created a nation of music poseurs. How do you spot one? First clue. Ask them what they like to listen to. If they say “everything.” Game over. Fake. If you really love music you might like everything and consider your tastes to be the most overused word in the English language - eclectic. But if you love music you would most certainly explain what “everything” means. You couldn’t resist. My musical Mt. Rushmore for instance: new U2, old Springsteen, Kings of Leon, Ryan Adams, Green Day, etc.

To me digital music is the equivalent of single chapter Word document downloads somehow replacing books. It’s killing the album.

I get that music is all bits and bytes. Even Beethoven’s 5th can be turned into zeros and ones. Got it. But the same can be said of money these days—you can shoot it places, you can pay bills online, etc. But the way iTunes treats music would be the same as a bank saying hey, it’s all zeroes and ones so when you go to our ATMs from now on they’ll just shoot out white pieces of paper. Why don’t you take a Sharpie and write the denomination of your bill and pay with that. Complete bullshit.

iTunes should look into a way to truly deliver some sort of liner notes that you can hold in your hand. They’ll need to explore ways to introduce the tactile side of the music experience to win me back.

Another sign you secretly believe iTunes sucks. . .AC/DC isn’t there. Led Zeppelin isn’t there. What does that tell you?