10.31.06 6:00 AM CST
• Modern Wizardry
• Josh Robertson
On the one hand, I don't know what we all did before the iPod. I recently threw away a horrible little mp3 device, the cross-branded Nike Rio something, which held a pathetic 128 MB of music. That's two, maybe three albums' worth. It was hailed as the wave of the listening future when it came out, years ago. Then the iPod came along with its gigs upon gigs ofstorage and blew this piece of crap (for which I had paid a few hundred bucks) out of the water.But back before that, we actually listened to CDs. We would have stacks of them by the stereo. We would take them out of the five-disc changer and pile them up because it was easier than hunting down jewel cases or the proper pots in our CaseLogic 500-disc black nylon wallets. The surest sign of psychotic tendencies was the ability to keep one's CD collection organized.
I loaded my iPod up when I got it, now three years ago, with over 4,000 songs. Such a number was mind-blowing; it seemed close to infinity. Now it seems very small. I have 4,161 on my iPod right now, but they're not my 4,161 favorite songs. They're just what's there, so they're what I listen to. When I first got the iPod, I was excited by the prospect of tending this vast garden of music, of dutifully adding and subtracting songs on a weekly, if not daily, basis.
God what a pain in the ass. Who wants to sit in front of a computer for hours sorting out the good from the bad? I will be on the subway and hear a terrible song; by the time I've gotten home I can't remember what it was, nor do I really want to run straight to my computer to delete it. So it stays, it lurks on, waiting for the chance to jump up and suck again. I have four entire albums by Eric B and Rakim on my iPod — I probably like about six songs. But I can't remember which six. I have cool new CDs sitting on my desk by Hot Chip and El Goodo, passed on to me by music editor Tim Mohr, but I haven't added them to the iPod yet because there is no room, because I won't delete all those unwanted Eric B and Rakim songs for fear of losing
the ones I like. It's gridlock.
For the sake of some slight thematic unity, I decided not to put any jazz, classical or country music on my iPod. I like those genres plenty, but they don't work well in the 4,161-track shuffle. Consequently I have not listened to any jazz, classical or country music in three years. I left Bob Dylan off as well — Dylan is, well, Dylan, and he sounds best played with a lot of other Dylan. Not sandwiched between Eric B and Rakim and Hot Chip. I left most of my Elvis Costello and R.E.M. off not because it's not poppy enough but because, for technical reasons I don't understand, their songs play much quieter than everything else. Maybe I need to get the remastered versions or something.
I opened a giant black nylon CaseLogic 200-disc wallet the other day, almost by accident, and was gripped by a sadness. There before me was The Old 97s' Too Far to Care, an album I loved very much. I used to listen to it all the time three years ago, before I had an iPod. Before I zipped all my black nylon CaseLogic 200-disc wallets shut, and what was left in them unloaded to the iPod became as good as dead to me.
I guess I need more than one iPod. I need a jazz iPod, a classical iPod, a country iPod. And then I need an iPod for music I'm just testing out and am not sure I will like, and I need an iPod for the true 4,000+ soundtrack of my life. The rest of which I would spend organizing my various iPods.
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Comments on this entry:
What no one talks about when they herald the coming of the mighty ipod and the supposed death of CDs is that it's a step backwards in sound quality. CDs will always sound better, and if you have a high-end stereo in your home or your car, you're going to cry for all your CDs back that you sold after you compare one to the sound on your dinky Ipod. Go ahead, play an original CD on a good stereo and then plug in your Ipod with the MP3 you downloaded from Itunes. You crying yet? Ipods are fine if just listen to music through trendy little white ear buds while you're jogging or sitting on a bus. For the rest of us who play music, you know, into the air, long live the CD.
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i receiveed the blk nano for christmas. what a nightmare trying to remove the same music that got up loaded more than once. software updates that have locked me out until the battery died. i love my no-name mp3 player that sounds better than my ipod. i want to and need to add, remove, and backup my music to cd's for safe keeping just in case my computer takes a nose dive.