03.19.99
Media Ramble, Part 1
Mar 19 Fri (09 AM)
Music is strange for me.
I generally listen to it in one of three modes: Active Listening, Driving Listening and Background Listening. By far, the majority of my music listening time comes in the form of backgrounding. There’s a nice little CD player at work in the office that I’m in. It’s the one that I’m using to introduce the sales staff to my tunes. At home, we’ve pieced together a nice little system with a 5-disc player that I don’t use nearly as often as I could.
The Driving time has always varied quite a bit. Whenever I’d take the bus, my MiniDisc player was a constant companion. On occasion I’d take the DiscMan. When driving, the radio used to be the only thing wolud work, but now after I got Amy a new stereo for her Birthday, we’ve got the full range of radio, tapes and easily plugged-in CD player. However my commute time is down to about 8 minutes, which is hardly enough for a song and a half, and that’s off the radio.
Active listening has shrunk now to the point of being miniscule. Really, this only happens when I get a new disc that I’ve been eagerly anticipating. I think the most recent examples have been Nick Cave’s The Boatman’s Call and Depeche Mode’s Ultra and few others that have only had the treatment once or twice.
I suppose this reflects the division between the producer and the receiver. The artist and the audience. There’s only a limited amount of time in a single day. During that time, you can either create things (concepts, ideas, products) or use them. (Those obviously are not the only ways of living, there’s also passing other people’s things along for instance, but for simplicity, let’s paint the world black and white.)
Given these two options, which is better? What are the repercussions of each?