Future Mythologies

There's always something about music technology that worries me. Mp3s for instance. How much worse do they sound than CDs or records? Everyone seems to have an opinion on this, and they're almost always based on elements other than how they actually sound. It's always about how people don't like having to hear music out of their computer, how they need something to hold on to, how they don't want to pay through the nose for cheap pieces of plastic that have a short life, or something else. It's pretty much the same as the CD vs. Vinyl debate. How many arguments are actually based on sound? Yes, I'm sure it's easier to clean your weed on a record cover than a jewel case, and they can be pretty. I personally think that people who seem to value "records" more than "music" are more fetishists than anything else. When I tell someone I have a copy of Orange Juice's live "Felicity", it certainly does not mean that I have the very rare flexidisc. But I know what it sounds like, don't I? I can fucking listen to it, can't I?

Now I'm not sure about mp3s vs. CDs. Some of the arguments are ridiculous, such as "You can't tell the difference between CD and 128 kbps" or "mp3s don't have any frequencies above 10kHz." It's well known that mp3s use a system of data removal, but to my ears I can't yet decide if there's a noticeable deficiency or not. Some say that mp3s have no re-listenability, i.e. "I can't listen to an mp3 over and over for hours without suffering a major earache". But I've done it. There was some minor discomfort, but I'm using a pair of Koss headphones that essentially vise to my head.

What I mean with this is that I feel ashamed about listening to mp3s. I feel like I'm showing that I have no regard for audio quality. It's easy to make me insecure about my ears, though maybe a mass mp3 challenge a la Pepsi is in order here.

So to clarify one stance I am sure of: I am a music collector. I am most definitely NOT a record collector. I use terms like "record", "single", "LP" because those are the terms of our shared experience as music listeners, not because those physical objects hold any mystical properties in their tangibility.