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The Excitement Has Left: Digital Music
B.B. When it comes to the current state of music, I have to agree with King when he previously sang "The thrill is gone," (sounding better on vinyl album). Music is an art form that should forever evolve whether we're aficionados of those changes or not; I'm not one to measure up one era to another and announce either better. When I claim the thrill is gone, I'm talking about the way we, as fans, interact and consume our music. Permit me to explain.
I'm a member of a unique generation. I was born into what some people only a few years younger may call a world of Luddites. Vinyl LPs and turntables were the custom, but as technology marched on, our music became compact. As is generally the case, what we gave up in matter, we compensated in handiness.
My generation entered a world with technological limitations in spite of that, adopted any and all advances; this makes us distinct. Today, I love my iPod. I admit it. The vision of thousands of songs at my disposal is terrific. And let's come to terms with it, heaving crates of records, not to mention turntables, amps and speakers together with me is just plain impractical. Nonetheless, awash in a sea of MP3s, torrents and burned CDs is the very knowledge that made music such a fundamental part of my life.
Vinyl Albums - all-inclusive with the cover art, jackets, and linear notes - were more than merely an anthology of songs. They served a special introduction to numerous artists, doorways by which you felt a deeper relation to their music. Every vinyl lp was a case study where you'd follow along with the lyrics in that perfect marriage between the written word and melody. You found out who wrote the songs, who produced them, where and when they were recorded and any other small information you could store away in your memory banks. Even the sequencing, that little nod from artist to listeners that said, "This is how I'd like you to hear my music" was critical. Listening to music was an active activity, hardly an inactive second thought.
Now we've traded songs titles for track numbers, cover art for skins and perhaps the worst of all, quantity for knowledge. There are many records I've encountered in the previous year that I've thoroughly appreciated. Even so, beyond a band's name and maybe the name of the vinyl album, I don't have much for you. I can relate to you which tracks are my favorites but to name them would be just an educated suposition. I couldn't pick them out of a magazine. I can't even tell you their names. They are faceless, nameless, an ordinary compilation of melodies. I can pick and choose the songs I like, destroying the lost art of the album. The thrill, B.B., is indeed gone.
If this is the misfortune of digital music, then it is a sad finale: the lost sense of a combined culture that we experience through music. The mere analytics of bit rates or boasting of our iTunes libraries oppose the contention at hand. They're a red herring, a trail that only leads to real heartbreak. I fancy my music to have heart again, to have a soul, to be mine. I want it to be human again.
Phone? Tablet? Galaxy Note Ships One Million Units Worldwide (newsy-allvideos)
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**(**Image Source: Samsung / CNET)
**BY ADNAN S. KHAN**
**ANCHOR CHRISTINA HARTMAN**
It's a gadget of some sort, but even its creators aren't sure how to label it.
Samsung's Galaxy Note, which the company calls a "smart device," has shipped
one million units worldwide since it was released late October, according to
the company's Flickr account.
Here's the kicker … it's not even available worldwide. CNET writes…
**"Part smartphone and part tablet, the Note has seen a rise in sales across
Europe and Asia, particularly France, Germany, Hong Kong, and Taiwan … Samsung
called the Note's sales 'notable' since the device is creating a new market
for a cross between a phone and tablet."**
Cue the drumroll, here comes the specs. The 5.7-inch phone/tablet crossover is
outfitted with Android 2.3 Gingerbread, a 1.4 GHz dual-core processor, 16 gigs
on internal storage, and has an impressive 1280 by 800-pixel resolution.
Remember the days when you needed a full size laptop to display anything close
to a 1280 by 720 resolution? Yup … we feel old too.
Describing it as a 'smart-doohickey,' VentureBeat says the Note had to jump
quite a few hurdles, mostly Apple copyright lawsuits, to reach ...
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