I’m kinda down right now. Y’see I just accepted that I’m the only person that I know who still buys albums. Actually I’m really saddened by the fact that most people look at me quizzically when I tell them I still buy albums. For some reason the general public (or at least those I encounter) confuses “album” with “record.”
Obviously a record might be an album, but an album doesn’t have to be a record. An album can be a tape or a cd or even a collection of MP3’s (what an awkward phrasing), so it takes every bit of restraint I have to keep me from disengaging from conversation when someone mixes up the two concepts.
But wait, I was writing about how I’m the only person in my sphere that still buys albums. A couple of weeks ago, I went to my cousin’s house to watch the VP debate. It was such a dope scene; the meal was prepared from scratch using completely organic ingredients. And as the meal was being prepped we were listening to her iPod in the kitchen.
Now I was there with two cousins, one who lived there and her visiting sister. Being the guy with inquisitive ears that I am, I’d frequently ask, “who is this” generally followed up with “so, how is the album.” It broke my heart when the reply to the second question usually ended up being some variation of “I only have a few songs.”
I mean these are the same cousins who suffered along with me when an older cousin forced us to listen to introduced us to Peter Gabriel’s So. I’m pretty sure it was each of our first encounters with a cd. The cousin whose house it was, was the first person that clued me into to this new band from Chicago called Smashing Pumpkins. Here we’d taken pretty similar paths in terms of music, only for me to end up alone.
So it was sad. And kind of frustrating. Paste had created an interest in The Weepies, but my visiting cousin had a few songs of theirs that I’d not heard. However she came up short on specifics like “which album is this on” and “how many albums do they have?”
(On an unrelated note, listening to the soundtrack for the cooking experience, I completely saw how we were not only related, but were clearly influenced by our mother’s tastes in music. If you’d been able to hear what music we were forced to listen to endured experienced all those summers and winter breaks and then fast forwarded to what was playing in that kitchen the evolution would be obvious.)
My best friend doesn’t even buy music, emphasis on “buy.” He’s usually up on stuff before I am, but I think that even he’d be hard pressed to recall the last album that he purchased.
And that’s the thing; finding out the last good album someone purchased creates a much fuller portrait than finding out the last good song someone purchased. A song is so limiting and might just reflect mood, whereas an album is more likely to be indicative of taste in addition to mood.
Yes, I know that the advent of the cd is one of primary causes of the decline of the music industry. I fully appreciate the irony of lamenting the fact that I’m the only one who’s still buying them. But I do. I wish that I had someone to at least converse with. I’m too young to be a dinosaur.
You’d think that someone who’s been celibate as long as I have would be used to being alone, but in this instance one might really be the loneliest number.
