A Case for George and Ringo

I’m wondering how much mp3’s and iTunes have changed the music industry and the listening experience for teenagers. There’s no album experience anymore. I think it may be leading to more and more processed crap since, for all intents and purposes, everything that’s released is a single. I can’t think of a single album where I like every single song on it. Thriller is the greatest pop record ever, but looking at it now I would only buy five of the nine songs on it unless there were some serious extras or a massive discount for buying the whole thing. Imagine the Beatles trying to sell the White Album the way it was originally done. Their record company would start by scrolling down the writers’ credits and just deleting anything with Harrison or Starr next to it. Ctrl-F, Harrison or Starr, delete all. That would get it down to twenty-five songs. Then they would get rid of everything under 2 ½ minutes. There’s no room for artists being quirky. That would get rid of another eight songs, and so far the only hit that’s been eliminated is Blackbird. Revolution 9 would have to go for the same artists’ indulgence reason the super short songs had to go. So we’re left with twelve songs and all but one of the hits, but would it really be the masterpiece that the thirty song original was. I seriously doubt it. Actually, this started with CD’s making it easy to skip songs. Skipping songs on a tape was always more trouble than it was worth and skipping songs on a record was almost as bad, so you sat there and listened to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” even though it wasn’t your favorite song, but after a while it grew on you because it was part of the album. There’s something to be said for listening to the flow of an album. It’s what makes it more than the sum of its parts, and I think iTunes is making it too easy to just get the parts.