A 30 second clip of ‘Under the Cover of Darkness’ appears on Amazon. Meanwhile, the entire ‘The People’s Key’ and James Blake’s self-titled albums are streaming for free on the internet a month and a week before their physical release, respectively.
I remember purchasing ‘I’m Wide Awake/It’s Morning’ at HMV and listening to it on the bus ride home. I sat on the grass behind the bus stop, which was littered with cigarette butts. The sky was blue, the weather was wonderful. I had a portable CD player.
We used to buy an entire CD based on a single we loved. Now I may not even buy it if I like 2 songs. I just download those 2 songs. I still believe in the concept of an album artistically. It can be very well done. But an album is the concept of the artist.
I downloaded an ebook app on my IPhone 4. I read half of a short story by Chekhov. It was free. The story is very good, I haven’t finished it. Yet I carry the IPhone around with me everywhere (even to the can; especially to the can).
Recently, CD purchases have been motivated by an anxiety that I own no physical copies of music I’ve been listening to the last 5 plus years. I don’t even own any Elliott Smith albums. And I fucking love Elliott Smith more than any musician, author, artist, etc.
I could have written these thoughts in journal. The readership of this blog may be 2 people at most. Now these words are online. What does it mean? I had a blog in high school where I wrote little random poems. They seemed non-sensical and surreal, although I’m sure there was real emotion to them. I forgot about that blog, but I found it again a few weeks ago. It’s still there if one remembers to look for it.
