A Room You Can't See [link]

[Dan Q]

I really enjoyed this micro-documentary. It's only ten minutes long, but it's excellent. It's described as:

Your music library became endless. Something quiet disappeared when it did.

A short documentary about formats, streaming, and trying to work out whether the music changed, or I did.

https://www.terrygodier.com/a-room-you-cant-see

[pepper]

This is really great! I can heavily relate to a feeling of alienation towards music (or art in general, really). I noticed all these same things happening in my own relationship with music over the last several years, although I never stopped listening to albums all the way through, and I took very similar actions few years back and can highly recommend going to shows and engaging with local music 

I will disagree with his final point though. I'd argue that the "gear", or the medium used to listen to music, does matter. Like streaming music is designed from the ground up to keep your attention on the app and push the music to the background. Doesn't matter if its Spotify or Tidal or whatever, its a part of how music streaming is intended to be experienced. On the other hand MP3s and CDs requires one to put thought and care into a collection. Its more effort for sure but it's a wholly different experience that streaming cannot deliver.

I dunno, when people quit using Spotify en mass earlier this year I was excited to see people reconsider their relationship to music, but when i told those around me I cancelled Spotify they ask me where i went to and i said my iPod, they were surprised and acted like it's some archaic practice they could never do. But like, it shouldn't be a surprise! There's nothing wrong with using MP3s, and it shouldn't be exceptional. People just forgot that there's always been an option to keep a personal music collection of MP3s and CDs, and that makes me sad. 

Anyways thanks for sharing Dan this sort of stuff has been on my mind a lot lately!