Not another digital vs. vinyl thread

The title is meant to evoke the satirical element of movies like Not Another Teen Movie, Scary Movie, etc... movies that capitalize on the audience's growing dissatisfaction with a certain genre, and using it to create comedy and maybe even some profound insight into the genre itself, something merely a "straight" genre piece may not accomplish.

Here, I'm not interested in the typical digital vs. vinyl debate that ends in pointless bickering and one-upsmanship. And I think we all know very well by now the merits and detriments of each format. But rather what the real world consequences of each format are. Has the digital revolution of convenience dulled people's brain receptors to the point where they physically are becoming less capable of enjoying music? This study done by MIT on the brain function of ChatGPT users is alarming, and I think it may also tie into convenient digital music formats.

And inferior brain function...

https://time.com/7295195/ai-chatgpt-google-learning-school/

I've only used ChatGPT a handful of times. Maybe because it's too far away from the quality of the Star Ship Enterprise's central computer. Or maybe because I grew up in the 80s, was a latchkey kid, everything was hard, and it created a bias toward the tactical... getting my hands dirty... maybe I watched too much Terminator and just inherently don't trust computers... and the fact that I've spent almost an equal amount of times being frustrated with apps, software and interfaces, and enjoying music.

I don't think any serious studies looking into the effects of long term exposure to digital convenience have been done. We are in uncharted territory, and it may have taken many decades for this to take root. There are some real world consequences to digital convenience in music we are seeing take root. The concept album is disappearing, even the album itself, in favor of singles. Music is becoming more bite sized, simplified and getting lost in endless copying and revivals of once dead genres in place of new genres organically being birthed. New bands are virtually non existent in popular music now, heavily favoring solo acts... which is f'ing shocking to me. I don't know how music thrives on nothing but solo acts. It would be like nothing but one-man/woman plays in theater. How the f**k do you have jazz, disco, punk, new wave, prog rock, art rock, grunge, etc. without bands???? Those genres did not just come out of nowhere... they were created from and facilitated entirely new ways of thinking and social movements that birthed new fashion, art, movies, etc. When you think of 80s music, there is an explosion of memories, sights, sounds, even smells that felt fresh, new and invigorating... it was genuine novelty. Even McDonalds had interesting architecture, now replaced with a sterilized, sleekness.






Same with 60s, 70s and 90s music... but as we moved closer to the new millennium, I've found it more and more difficult to identify genuinely novel social and cultural trends that were not merely retreads of stuff we've already seen, merely remixed. Feel free to correct me on this. But if true, societies need genuine change and innovation to stay healthy and relevant. Bands create synergy, a clash and flow of ideas where the whole becomes greater than the parts. Solo acts make up maybe 10% of my music, and they are mostly pop acts, but many pop acts were still groups... I just don't see how you have a healthy music industry relying solely on individuals. Solo acts being mostly in the pop and hip hop genres means the future is going to be THOSE genres. Yuck! I like pop, but in small doses... and I cannot stand hip hop, which has done more damage to the black community than anything else IMO (I am black just FYI).

This is all being enabled by audiences who are embracing this new way of consuming music. Corporations control the train, but it can't move without audiences shoveling the coal. What is the effect of having convenient digital music devices and services? Here are some relevant talking points I think (these opinions are my own btw):

1. Digital music is inferior to vinyl playback in terms of quality. This is not a knock on digital per se. Rather it's like saying Margot Robbie is "hotter" than Dakota Johnson. So what? Even if it's true, it's still in the eye of the beholder, they are both still beautiful, and comparison is the thief of joy. Those with DACs they like, still enjoy music and if they never hear vinyl they can probably die happy. My point isn't in saying it's wrong to have digital. I'm simply introducing the idea of the uncanny valley effect of music playback in an objective sense. Personally, I feel vinyl captures the essence of musicality alot more than even the best digital and when I listen to vinyl I feel like I am hearing real, physically present music and musicians... vs. good digital, where I feel like I am hearing a shockingly good simulation of the same thing, but a simulation none the less. Simulations are not inherently a bad thing. But since the brain creates all sensory experience, hearing something that the brain recognizes as totally real vs. mostly real, may have long term effects on one's opinion of music... to the point where it may have a butterfly effect on the entire music industry apparatus, which itself effects fashion, culture, movies, art, etc.

2. Vinyl sounds not only totally real to me, but the user is forced to manipulate the various parts of the playback device physically in order for it to operate and operate well. In other words you have to work to hear your music properly, every single time... taking the time to figure out what you want to listen to rather than having a digital randomizer (aka shuffle mode) decide for you, physically getting up and finding the record, carefully taking it out of the sleeve, putting it on the platter, using a cleaning brush to avoid pops and crackles, cueing the record, etc... and when it's done, physically getting up and removing the record and flipping it. And doing it all over again when you want to hear another record. And maintenance when needed, of both the player and the record. None of this is back breaking labor, but some work is involved. And I believe it begins to create a sense of ownership of the PROCESS. Ownership creates pride, which creates confidence, which then positively filters into other aspects of your life. In other words, I don't think vinyl ownership and playback is a trivial thing. In the ChatGPT study, it became clear that those that were forced to "work" in order create the essays, had higher brain function. There is clearly some correlation between deep involvement in the process of creating something (whether its an essay or music playback) and higher brain function. Now, digital began with CDs, and some of the laborious aspects similar to vinyl remained... so I still think there was a sense of ownership as a result of the process. But I do think the "inferior" SQ started to have a detrimental effect on music appreciation.

Note: I am not accounting for radio. Radio was both convenient and worse sounding than CD players, and was a thing long before the 80s... that did not seem to stop music and culture from evolving into novel forms. I cannot account for this discrepancy and it may poke massive holes in my argument.

3. Digital is still evolving and inevitably will get better. Even if tomorrow someone released a DAC that sounded indistinguishable from good vinyl playback, would these problems that I think exist, disappear? No. Because there is still the convenience factor. Bedroom creators will still be taking over the digital music space, their tendency to copy and remix will still be prevalent. The greater realism and musicality of this theoretical "better" digital that sounds like vinyl may give them the illusion of true music... but other factors like the insular nature of social media, dating apps, streaming services, video games, etc. still create too many echo chambers and lonely islands for people to hide out in, leading to a sterilizing of culture that is much easier for corporations to manipulate and profit from. As long as "user data" remains the lifeblood of our economic and cultural ecosystem, these more convenient methods of musical enjoyment may continue to stifle higher brain function en masse, leading to a slow descent of de-evolution for humanity, where human consciousness takes a backseat to digital consciousness.

4. The detrimental effects of these more convenient forms of playback may be easily offset by other factors, such as going to live music shows, going to gear meets like sbaf often does, nurturing ones social circle, going out into nature, taking in art, literature, etc. It may simply be a question of balance. Unfortunately this balance seems to be slowly disappearing in our society. The late movie critic Roger Ebert, when the debate between 35mm film and digital cinematography was raging in the early 2000s, stated that there had been no studies done on the effects of film vs. digital projection on audiences. He believed it may have been possible that digital had a detrimental effect on audience enjoyment. I have my suspicions that he may have been right... Hollywood flung itself head first into the digital camera revolution because of cost savings and convenience. I actually theorized the clunkiness, inconvenience and delicate nature of film, forced filmmakers and actors to work harder and thus created better movies. I don't think anyone would argue with the idea that movies have become worse in the last 15 years, which just coincidentally happens to be when movies switched to digital photography. Just sayin'.

I have no evidence for any of this... only anecdotes, conjecture and observation. This is not meant to make anyone feel bad about the way they consume music, but I do think it's a topic worth discussing.

 

while I don't necessarily disagree with much of what you've written, I would challenge the notion that music is largely moving towards solo acts. The list of credits on some "solo" act's songs is pretty astounding (granted, we now live in a very litigious world where any bit of sampling or tiny bit of written music requires full credit lest ye be sued). I don't necessarily have real evidence to the contrary, but I think there's still plenty of music these days that's written/performed in both solo and collaborative camps. Sure, it may be in vogue to push "solo" acts these days, but there have been times when being perceived as a band was the cool thing (I think of stuff like Pedro the Lion or Nine Inch Nails, which started & existed mostly as solo acts under the guise of a band name). I won't be surprised if the pendulum eventually swings back the other way.

disclaimer: I don't really listen to rap music... so, perhaps, the solo artist thing may be more applicable to that genre.

 

Not Another Teen Movie, an awesome film! "It's already been broughten!". I listen to my music digitally a lot as I will not bring my TT setup to a job site. I have ripped A LOT of CD's and not nearly enough of my record collection, I stream from my Plex server. I have tried a streaming service that was free for a month once. Not my jam. I don't like ad banners..... The more insidious convenience thing to me is Apple and google pay crap. But yes, it seems to me like Wall-E was pretty spot on with the flabby floating chair consumer future thing. I think that the co-opting of everything by big business is an issue. I would be surprised if there weren't studies done that showed how addictive and bad for motivation this shit is, and more surprised if corporations raking in cash were upset by profiting off of lack of it. Less for more is the new age of consumption.... I think.

 

I started to do CDs when all the local record stores in my area started to think that Boston and common LPs were worth $15 and up. No more dollar bins but CDs were still cheap.

 

The problem is significant. Out of all the bands in the top 400 artists on Spotify only 3 were formed in the last 10 years. THREE. In the next decade it might be zero. Fewer bands signed means fewer people try to create bands for obvious reasons. No point if labels are not signing bands.

 

I still buy CDs! And cassette tapes...

 

As a follow up with my comment since I was blowing up Taco Bell on my usual hangout spot, LPs in my area got really expensive. The shit records were still shit that no one wants (easy listening pop crap), and every single record store think they were hot shit that they can sell overpriced records to hipsters and get away with it (which was sometimes true). I'm like this, I was getting broke buying music on LPs (and don't get me started on newly pressed LPs with shit QC) on top of paying money for a good turnable. Then after a while I realize that hey, that album at most stores were like $30-$50 but the same CD that wasn't compressed shit was only $3. The math was easy.

 

The cost of most things is getting out of hand! IMHO...

 

I have no idea what good (or even decent) vinyl sounds like. Literally never heard any. And maybe I never will. It's too expensive.

 

The problem with vinyl is the time and research involved as well as a lot of newly pressed records being absolutely junk. I don't buy many new records unless it's from a band I love releasing a new album or a reissue of something I do not have. In both cases I am online finding out how many variants, where they were pressed if there's more than one cut etc. Most people don't care or can't take the time and buy a record that's a plasticky dusty out of flat off center POS with non fill everywhere. So obviously their experience is gonna suck, not mention turntable variables, stylus and phono pre amp all being involved and key ingredients to success.

Also you have to buy used ! Except the actual cartridge/stylus. It I had to buy my TT again today it would cost me over $1200 just for the table !

I love both records and digital. At times I am all vinyl on speakers, I almost never listen to vinyl on headphones, absolutely love digital on my headphone chains. So for me it's either spinning records on speakers or playing lossless files on headphones. I do often listen to digital on speakers as well and do a lot of comparisons against vinyl.
Anyway I'm probably weird but I don't think it's worth getting into vinyl if you don't listen to old shit... If you're 99% listening to stuff from the last 10 years don't even bother.

 

yadvat

It's all about the experience.

From the album cover to the physical disk and the turntable. It was a tactile link to the music. CD is physical, but it never came even close to the LP experience.

Looking back to my spinning days, I'm actually quite glad that I never owned or lived with a high end deck. I'm quite glad that I never had to worry too much about the angle of this or the height of that. I remember dreaming about names like SME. One can always dream about gorgeous engineering with big price tags. But consumer-level turntables kept the focus on the music. I may have upgraded a cartridge, but I never changed an arm or did anything with a protractor.

But now I'm digital and I get my music at a click. Get my lovin on the run.