I'm going to put this out there. I'm going to be 36 this year. In my time I have seen a myriad of technologies come and go. The older I get, the more I become a stickler for tradition. I hope you brought your swimsuit, because we are diving in deep on this one.
The year was 1978. Muscle Cars. Queen, Rush, David Bowie. Golden times. This was also the year that I was born on a hot July morning. It was still the era of record players and 8 tracks. VHS hadn't been introduced yet, TVs weighed A TON, and computers were still the size of a room. That was the scene. Analog. The recording industry was a big deal because there was no Internet. Music and TV were the biggest two forms of entertainment on the continent. The cost associated with producing media in those days created a high standard for production. Thousands of dollars worth of tape were used to record the best quality audio at the time. Performers had to be good, very very good.
There are arguments for and against the costs of production. By today's standards, anyone can create an album for a fraction of the cost, with readily available and relatively affordable equipment. This makes it easier for artists to establish themselves; however, on the other side of the coin there are more artists to compete with for exposure. Knowledge and education is easily available to help produce high quality production. And, that's part of the problem. Anybody can produce media, there is no standard for content quality. Multiple retakes can easily be done digitally, post production can do wonders that it never could do before.
Don't get me wrong, all of this wonderful technology makes the true masters' work sound even more amazing! There is just a lot more rough for the diamonds to be hidden in.
What is so romantic about analog technology? In my mind, there are two blaring examples; film cameras and records. What does it all boil down to? The relationship between the artist and the medium.
Photography is latin for painting with light. The technology for capturing a certain amount of light over a certain amount of time on film and using chemical reactions to both store that light and transform photo-sensitive paper to reveal an image is a physical and chemical process. Quite honestly, a brilliant process. It is also an art form. It requires timing, technique, and a special touch to create unique images of high quality.
Digital SLR cameras do a wonderful job of mimicking the actions of an analog film camera. Users can set f/stop, shutter speed, and even simulate film speed (ISO). Digital technology has surpassed film quality in terms of clarity; megapixels for both capture and print. Yes this is true. Hundreds to thousands of images can be stored on a single memory card. Photos can be instantly reviewed; whereby a photographer had to wait a week to have photos developed when I was a kid. Today's film photographers are pretty much limited to personal darkrooms for doing their exposure and print work.
When I was a kid, you had to be skilled at predicting what a picture would look like. There was no shoot and adjust and reshoot. Touch, experience, and confidence, were key ingredients. This lead to a bond between the photographer and their equipment. There was a mutual understanding of how each played an integral role in the creation of the final product. That bond is what I like to call romance.
The special touch in art is what gives it feeling. It's the romance behind the process, the journey not the destination. As a shooter who has spent an equal amount of time on both SLR cameras and digital cameras, I can say that there is a distance from my digital equipment, a coldness that was not there with the physical act of film photography.
I feel the same way about music as I do for photography. Records will always sound the best, to my ears anyways. We hear all kinds of noise in the background while we go throughout our days. We hear it, it's there, but we don't listen to it. It just kind-of drowns into the mix. But, it is always there. That same noise is in the background on records. The imperfections make it sound almost live. The technology of engraving records, and precision playback pitch is quite fascinating. Records are the oldest form of musical recording and yet have transcended so many other forms as the audiophile's choice of medium.
It's the sense of attachment. The record is a physically real thing. We can see it physically rotating as it plays. We know that whatever is making that noise is a physical interaction. To our ears, things that make noise are tangible, real, moving. We connect with these tangible things both emotionally and physically. We bond.
In the days of the record, there was a physical attachment to the music that created such amazing emotions. There was a primal urge that was satisfied by collating at the record shop to hunt for the next experience in the form of a cassette or record. These elements are not present in modern digital music. We simply don't get electronically attached the way we do to physical things.
Vinyl music appeals to more of the five senses. It has a distinct smell, it can be touched as well as watched as it plays. The record art was an expression of what was to be heard inside. The lyrics slips and liner art were a mystery to the shopper. All of these factors created a different level of bond to the music.
Call me a romantic, but analog technology was a true art form. It was an interaction between the artist and the medium as in the case of film photography. It was an interaction between the listener and the record as it played that created attachment to the songs I loved. That feeling is distant in the digital world. The old fashioned stickler in me is still inspired as an artist by the romance of a familiar dance with a familiar old partner.
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