It started with iTunes not too long ago. Legal, digital music. Already back then there was opposition on all sides. Musicians not getting paid enough, scared of illegal sharing. Labels seeing their business model change and consumers having to put up with useless copy protection and lower quality than before, on something they paid for. Yet it was truly a revolution caused by illegal downloading such as Napster. When Spotify showed up about three years ago, we could see the next step in this revolution. Suddenly you could create online playlists and share them online. You could search and listen to music on the go on your cellphone without first storing it on your computer. The same debates about pros and cons are still there. Just slightly different.
But there is something in this that you seldom hear about and that is what happens when something becomes next to infinite. Even though there are limitations, they are next to nothing. Spotify market themselves as having more than fifteen million songs that you can freely listen to for about $5.
While the issue is considered to be money, about how much and when, I find myself observing a change in my behaviour. I find myself listening less and less to music on Spotify or in iTunes. To have everything at your fingertips is no longer a sense of freedom but a sense of indifference.
What I have noticed is that when something becomes free and unlimited, the same thing happens to music as with money in a state of hyperinflation. When you have it all, it’s value is depreciated.
Six months ago, I got myself a record player, bought my first vinyl record since 1993. Suddenly, music was fun again. You know that feeling you have when you’re a kid and can only afford one record and even have to save up for it. Now I find myself thinking every now and then that I should cancel my Spotify account and erase all mp3s on my computer. I probably won’t do that, it is still very convenient when you are on the move and great for finding new music. But the thought is there.
I allow myself one album per month at the most. I could get more of course, but I don’t want to. Instead I want to go down, buy a record I have been thinking about for a long time, buy it, come home and slowly open the wrapper and put it on. Hold it while the music starts. Ane Brun’s latest album, my favourite at the moment, “It All Starts With One”, is already scratched. It has a weird sound for about 30 seconds. I found it annoying and thought about getting it replaced, but now it’s part of it’s personality.
Music is no longer a throw-away thing, but something I care for. I am building a relationship with the album and its creator. I show respect to the artist and the hard work he or she has put into making it the way it is, to share a vision and a part of themselves.
In our society, limitation has become a curse word, but I look upon it as a calling to go deeper. It has turned into a kind of enjoyment and pleasure that I had forgotten in all this extravaganza.
Yesterday I went to the Volt festival in Uppsala, an annual festival for all kinds of electronic music.
It was a varied mix of all kinds of music and a very interesting and exciting experience. In the end I have to list Darkstar, who did an exellent performance, as my favourite. Around midnight, it felt like it was enough, my brain was about to collapse from all the noise and visual effects trying to steal a bit of my brains attention. A bit sad I have to say, because the bus didn’t leave until 03.15 in the morning.
I brought my camera with me to try and shoot as much as possible. Shooting music and concerts is a bit different, especially indoor since the light is very unpredictable. Just because of that, I wanted to experiment as much as possible in a place where it was actually ok to bring your camera. It turned out to be challenging but rewarding.
Classical music has been a neglected type of music in my life, just like in most Swedes lives I would say. I still remember listening to Vivaldis four seasons and Edward Grieg, but that was more or less it.
By knowing Regi and Dan who are both violists I have had the privilege and oppurtunity to listen to more classical music than ever before. At the moment I can hear Dan practicing in his office.
The first real concert I went to was in Stockholm concert hall in 2008 when Dan came there to play with their orchestra Festival Strings Lucerne (Regi was at home with a newborn).
Later I saw him play in London the same year and this week I have seen three concerts. One with Dan in the Jesuitchurch, one with them both playing with clarinett player Sabine Meyer and this Saturday Regi played a tango concert together with her friend and collegue Anca Serban. Three very different types of concerts but the more I hear, the more I appreciate it.
It’s pretty impressive too that their daughter Yara, six years old, can sit still and listen to a two hour long concert. I don’t think many kids coudl do that.
In a few hours I will get on the plane from Zurich to Vienna in Austria and after a few days there I will return home to Stockholm.
Everyone knows who Bob Dylan is. His songs has been played over and over again, in thousands of versions by himseld and by others. He is a legend that despite his soon 70 years still gets up on stage and plays.
No matter what you think of his music, he has a big influence on and changed what we call music.
When I decided to stay longer here in California than I had first planned I had the oppurtunity to go with my friends to Lake Tahoe on the border between California and Nevada to see him play live. An oppurtunity I didn’t want to miss.
Despite that everyone knows who Dylan is, I recognize a lot of his early stuff, I have never really paid attention to his music.
But Dylan is still playing, is still recording. Never giving up. To continue, year after year, for over 50 years must mean that he clearly still loves what he does.
I have always listened to the music first and the lyrics later. Often I have no idea what the lyrics are about with music I have listened too. Because of this, it is kind of easy to not get stuck on Dylan, because his early stuff, is musically fairly simple. It is together with the lyrics that they reach new proportions.
So, to get something out of the concert, I sat down and listened to his music from the early 60’s to the last album that was released last year, 2009. I read the texts, watch documentaries, interviews and his scrapbook from his early years.
You can say what you want about this guy. The concert was not the best I’ve seen, mostly because I only recognized a few songs.
But this man is a genious.
I’m listening to Bon Iver, trying to finish off the part of the trip that took place in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. I should be sleeping, but there are many things you should do in life. At least that is what we keep telling ourselves.
I was pretty late sending out requests for a couch to sleep on in San Francisco, so most people already hade people staying with them, or were busy. One girl told me she got about five requests every day. So, I had to stay at a hostel.
On wednesday evening I went for the official weekly couchsurfing meeting in town.
Around closing time, I started talking to some people outside the place, and three minutes later I had somewhere to stay for the last four days in the city before heading north.
I ended up with Erik, who lives in the Mission, the neighbourhood that more and more is home to hipsters and well-paid young professionals, a place with lots of restaurants and bars and close to Dolores Park where everyone goes to hang out on a sunny day.
Erik’s roommate had recently moved out, so he had plenty of space for people to stay there. Except for me, Sabrina from Cologne in Germany were also staying there for almost a month. Together with them I got to see more of the local life in the city.
I have left the big, intensive city of San Francisco now. Tuesday to be more specific. My friend James from London came to the city on sunday and offered to pick me and Peter (who was also in town) up on the way up north. A timely offer to avoid the hassle of Greyhounding in the middle of the night.
So, tuesday morning we got into the car and started to roll out of the city, immediatelly noticing the difference in climate as you cross the Oakland-bridge and entering the rest of California. The climate in San Francisco is probably unique compared to the rest of the state because of it’s position in the bay.
It took us seven hours through the sunbleached meadows of California up to the forest covered hils of northern California and when we saw the snowy peaks of Mount Shasta, we knew we were getting closer.
We turned on the Kid A album by Radiohead on full volume in the car. Suprisingly not breaking the speakers.
Kid A is an album that it takes a while to get into. It’s perfect for long car drives and walks. Occasions where you can really put your entire attention on the music and let the landscape merge with the progression of the music through the 49 minutes and 57 seconds it takes to complete.
It is an album that demands something of you. If you play it in the background while doing something else it’s going to get to you, several of the tracks on the album would just be annoying. It demands of you to invest a part of yourself in it, and the larger the investment, the greater the gain. It is a composition where all the tracks hold together, forming a greater whole.
The only times I really listen to the album since I discovered it a month ago, is when I know that I can listen to it from start to end without getting disturbed. Often I listen to it with headphones so that I don’t miss all the details and the tiny sounds in the background. For example when three people sit in a car in silence, driving north, with a sound system good enough to encapsulate you.
Now I’m in the middle of nowhere, doing nothing. In a landscape that give you the feeling what it must have been like to come riding in on a horse from the east some time in the 1800’s to start a new life. A new future.
I don’t think it is a coincidence that some of the most revolutionary companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google, millions of start-ups and all the crazy venture capitalists was founded here on the west coast. The adventurers had already moved here.