God's iPod - Graceland

I know, I know - I've already had a track by Paul Simon. And sure enough, there are hundreds of fantastic tracks by other artists I could include here (in fact I might post about that too) but Graceland I have chosen for a particular reason - that it was the first album I evere heard on CD.

Back in the late 80's, when CD was first rumoured, and then brand new, and then (for a while) prohibitively expensive before it settled in and everyone had it, I made an album of my own. I recorded it late in 1986, in a studio miles from home, and one night we went to the studio manager's flat for supper. The discussion de jour soon began as to whether CD was, in fact, so clinical and clean in sound that it removed all the human feeling from the music, or whether the digital clarity was a good thing.

"Listen for yourselves," said our host, as he unveiled his very own CD player, and put in Graceland (which had been out about 6 months). I was an instant convert. The clarity and punch and brilliance was fantastic, and IMHO didn't mask the warmth and vibrancy of the music at all.

Another question, however, was not so easily resolved for me. The composition of an album had, up until then, taken aas one of its contstraints the length of time it was realistically possible to record onto 12" vinyl, and how to handle the turnover between side 1 and side 2. The last track on side 1 essentially had to be the "record turner" - the listener had to be motivated enough to want more. With a CD, there was, technically speaking, almost limitless possiblity in terms of length of album, and there was no "turnover" moment. So not only the perception by the listener, but the composition of the album would be affected by a change in technology.

The same, of course, is true of the iPod. A new technology is neither good nor bad, but it does affect the perception and the creation of music. The album as a concept - and especially as a "thing" - begins to break down with the iPod, as the listener can choose whether to accept all of an album, or only some selections, whether to listen to them in the order of composition or whether to rearrange them, splice them together with other music. The listener become sthe DJ, and the power is shifted between artist and listener. In some instances - like albums with two good tracks and piles of filler - this is perhaps a good thing. But if I were the DJ for Go'd iPod, I would insist that the listener take some whole albums on board, and make themselves listen to the whole. The artist shouldn't have all the power, it's true, any more than the publisher. But the tendency to cut and paste everything is not always beneficial to the listener either.