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By Bill Altreuter

Running through my archives for 2008 I was struck by two things: I did less interesting travel than is usual for me, and I seem to have heard less live music. The standouts were the Hunt Real Estate Art of Jazz shows, Willie Nile at the Tap Room, TMBG, Kathleen Edwards and David Byrne. No Thursday at the Square (it seemed like it rained every Thursday), and very little else. That's something to work on, I think. I listen to music all the time-- the only time I don't is when I am at work, and I think I agree with the point Robert Christgau is making when he says, "For me music doesn't fully become music until it approximates a social fact by existing outside of my head." The Dean is speaking to the question of whether contemporary music listeners experience it privately, on headphones or through their computers, and that raises an interesting question about generational shifts in how music is enjoyed. Not so long ago music was something that you performed yourself, or occassionaly saw performed. 78's limited the length of a given performance and came to define what the duration of a pop song appropriately consisted of. Albums allowed musicians to stretch out; CD's permitted the inclusion of more material, and now we listen to individual songs-- MP3s amount to the return of the hit single, with a twist. Time was that hit singles were heard on the radio were a part of the social soundtrack, but that day has long passed, I think. Is this evidence of social atomization, or something else?

Full post as published by Outside Counsel on January 01, 2009 (boomark / email).