• VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR, SO

• IS RADIO KILLING THE RECORD STORE?

By: Forrest Robinson

• Yep. I’m probably one of the few weirdoes left who still values the music and record store atmosphere in America and around the world. In the day and age where the media boasts diversity and peace amongst the people of this country and around the world, today it frightens me how we have reached the degree of separation, isolation, and alienation unlike we’ve ever seen before. Understandably, so many of our youth are not old enough to know the importance of something as simple as actually going to a record store. Okay, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Where are you going with this, if this is indeed about Tower Records closing its doors for good?” Granted. This is an unusual topic transition. Well, obviously it is quite impressive to be able to download an mp3 from the web, load it into our nifty, high-memory capacity iPods and roll with it. Technology seems to get more and more impressive every month. Many of us who just cannot afford this new techology just can’t keep up with it and seem to devote much of our lives trying to keep up with it for God knows what reason. So the music stores have suffered for it. I wonder if this would be the case if instead of thinking about how “inconvenient” it is to actually go to a music store, if we actually think of it for what it really means to do so, which is to experience being in the midst of other people who are also music lovers just like we are. There is also the very important point that some of us may not find sound quality of our music to be that important. This affects more things than we may be aware of – including our health. I fear that we take for granted that so many people are either bed-ridden or wheelchair bound, and may wish just for one day that they had the capability that we were blessed with to walk and move freely without any sort of debilitating physical handicap, instead of griping about not being able to find a parking space that is curbside service to the front doors of a music store. We complain about the youth (and ourselves) not getting enough exercise and the obesity rate in America going through the roof. How much are we truly helping ourselves in this crisis… really? Also, many of us realize this (and some may not), but the mp3 version of a song is only 10% the sound quality of an actual cd sound source file (or .wav). So a typical song from an actual cd is somewhere around 50MB whereas an mp3 sound source file weighs in at 5MB. So for someone like myself, who has an iPod, I adore the idea of being able to carry around literally hundreds of cds’ worth of songs in one small piece of technology, but I can definitely tell the difference when I put an actual cd in a cd player. It is worth doing an “A & B” test for yourself at some point. I can download a song from the internet and love it, but if I love it enough, I actually enjoy going to the music store and buying the actual cd, with its accompanying art and lyrics that come with it. Not to mention the community that I experience amongst other people in a time of such separation. There is also my recent disappointment and close call when my last iPod crashed after only 18 months of operation. Thank God, I owned every cd that I had loaded onto the iPod. Realizing that music can take up a substantial amount of memory, I removed the files from my computer. Historically, recording studios gave musicians the capability to achieve the highest quality sound possible for their recorded works. If it is in fact true that sound quality is not that important to the listener, this really changes things for the music world in general. It is obvious in today’s society that if the money doesn’t have to be spent for quality, it won’t be spent, but don’t expect for the price you pay for music to be adjusted accordingly. We all agree that cds are way overpriced these days, but hey – since the mp3 sound file is only 10% of the sound quality of an actual cd (with artwork, cd cover, lyrics, etc.) then if you ask me, the cds we download from iTunes or other sources today really should be only $2 (considering that many cds have gone up to as much as $19.99 so far). That, to me, is something to think about.

• Forrest Robinson

• Dec. 28, 2006