This monumental re-release of the most important and influential music of the 20th Century is a bitter-sweet thing for me. It marks so many profound passages. The very form of music itself, as well as the way in which we bought and received music, the way music was packaged and sold have changed, and this re-release marks the end of multiple eras.
Historians will say this release marks the headstone for the CD format. That's obvious enough. If CD was truly as "perfect" as it was originally sold to us ("perfect sound forever", oh how naiive we were), this would truly be a tragedy. I would love to be able to refuse to mourn the death of the 16/44.1 format. Good riddance. If only the replacements were better than the pathetic CD format, but it seems the immediate future is MP3, a compromised version of a compromised format. Between MP3 and the LOUDNESS race in mastering that has afflicted us for the last 15 years, destroying dynamic range, audiophiles like us who care have had nowhere to go and nothing to listen to when it comes to modern music. The digital era, despite its many promises, so far has unfolded to be a complete travesty for music lovers. Convenience at the cost of quality. Lowest common-denominator sound quality.
This release also marks the end of the local music store; a magical place full of wonderful music, the scene of so many chance meetings with future friends and rites of passage. It marks the end of the era when you dug through the crates to find a gem. When you were exposed to crazy music on the shop floor played by indifferent dudes behind the counter who were in the know and looked down their noses at you unless you surprised them by bringing up some worthy piece of music to purchase with your peasant sheckels.
You couldn't compare prices on-line, so you paid what they were asking, and you got excited when you found that rare CD from the latest UK band that was stored in the special locked up cabinet that you had no access to unless the snobby clerks would deign to get out the keys and open it up for you to have a look.
That's how it was for me back in the late 80's at the famous Lou's Records in Encinitas, CA. All my XTC CDs were imports that had to be had from the special locked off area. The famously snobby clerks (dressed in the latest hipster FU clothes) would do you a favor and allow you to fondle these unbelievably rare and expensive CDs you couldn't buy anywhere else for a few moments, and unless you were a serious buyer, they would rip them out of your hands and put them back.
Oh, how I hated the staff at Lou's Records at the time, but back I went because they were the place to buy the music I wanted. Now I'm nostalgic, even though it sounds absurd to newer generations. It was an adventure into hostile territory for normal middle-class guys like me with an interest in off-beat music.
More significantly, and to this observer, more sadly, it marks the end of the album as delivery medium for music. The album as an art form is kaput, finished, over.
Yeah, I'm going to sound like an old disgruntled geezer to some, but there is a lot to be said for the album as an art form. How do cut up Pink Floyd's The Wall and not end up missing the whole point of thing?
Yes, today's teens are accustomed to having everything at their fingertips and instantly available. Attention spans have been shaved down to a few nano-seconds.
How many of your favorite artists or what are recognized as being the greatest artists and songs of the rock era, can withstand the 3-second iPod test? You listen to 3 seconds of the Beatles Within You Without You and then you hit next. I mean, what was that crazy crap?
No, I don't get or understand the modern musical era, nor do I participate in any of the ways most modern people seem to get their music. I'm an offcial geezer now who dosn't appreciate or like 99.9% of modern so-called rock 'n roll. At one point in time, this would just be a simple passage one had to make as one got older; however I believe, and so do so many of the people steeped so deeply in this form of music, that rock 'n roll is dead and has been for some time. The future of rock music is the Australian Pink Floyd show, a re-creation of a real thing by actors. "Phony Beatlemania" as Joe Strummer once complained will be all that is left; a re-creation of something real for rich people deciding between fish or chicken. It's all just a kitschy video game to young people today, who are so cynical, they believe the Beatles are just some gandpa's "boy-band", foisted onto the dim public by corporations. Sorry, dudes, this all pre-dated all that junk.
Just like the Jazz Age ultimately ended and that music only exists in small scale and attended by people looking back on a by-gone era, so too, is rock finished.
Rock and roll was long dead in the USA after Elvis joined the military and Buddy Holly et al died in that plane crash. The Beatles were essentially a retro band in slicked up pompadours doing covers of black music from a by-gone age. To them, several years behind in Europe, it seemed fresh and alive. Rock would have died were it not for the Beatles. The entirety of the modern era and modern culture would never have happaned without the Beatles.
Most critically, rock and roll would have remained a dead art if it were not for the Beatles. No, I'm not so naiive this re-release of the Beatles catalogue will re-inspire or somehow revive rock 'n roll. I do think it will officially mark the end. I think kids will listen to it ironically, for kitsch value primarily. The future belongs to ring-tones and pitch-corrected novelty singers who manage to get the public's attention for 15 minutes.
So, FWIW, this old geezer breathes a heavy sigh, and feels a strong sense of melancholy at the same time he gets to delight in the ability to hear these old gems polished up and allowed to shine this one last time.
We never will, and haven't since heard their like again...
