April 23, 2010
by Ian McDonald | Editor in Chief
Attention spans seem to be at an all time low, but love for life-changing records will never fade.
I would really hate to have to explain to my children or grandchildren what albums are (you know, a collection of songs on one format that you could buy at a place called a record store). I’ll already probably have to do that for newspapers.
Even now the idea of the album as one unit has started to fade. Services like iTunes and Amazon MP3, while great for independent musicians, have had a hand in shortening listeners’ attention spans.
I mean, remember when T.R.L. was on MTV? Remember how they only showed maybe 20 seconds of a video? It seems that’s all the casual listener needs now. Music, as it’s heard on the radio or television, has been turned into tiny digestible chunks with no texture or flavor.
I’m definitely guilty of having my iPod set to random but sometimes I just need to sit down and listen to an album from start to finish, and I have a feeling I’m not alone.
Hidden Tracks: Obsolete by Ian McDonald
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