NEWS: Wil Wheaton's Geek in Review: The Musical Future

GEEK: Wil Wheaton's Geek in Review: The Musical Future

Years ago, I had a conversation with my son about my record collection, and he couldn’t believe that we used to put records in crates that were heavy and bulky, and actually took them with us to parties. I remember holding up my iPod – which was big and bulky by today’s standards – and telling him that I could hold more music in this little thing than I could fit in my entire apartment on vinyl when I was in college. I may as well have told him how great it was that we didn’t have to worry about Indian attacks in our house, he was so unimpressed.

And why would he have been impressed? He’s grown up in The Future. My kids have never seen a floppy disc, heard the sound of a modem connecting, blown into a NES cartridge in the futile hope of making it work, or looked up an address in a Thomas Guide. I have experienced all of these things, and though I’m grateful that I don’t have to deal with them in any meaningful way now, unless I want to, it’s odd to me that, at just 36 years-old, I straddle this tremendous and significant technological rubicon, while my children can barely see it in on the distant horizon behind them, as they speed away on their jet packs and rocket bikes. I mean, they hardly remember cassettes, let alone cassingles, and occasionally I will consider this fact and quietly weep for them, alone, while they play Call of Duty against some stranger on the other side of the world in real time.

This memory came to me over the weekend, when I commented on Twitter that I loved side two of Abbey Road. Mentioning “side two” of a record made me realize that my kids have grown up in a world where records are as relevant to them as Kodak Disc cameras…or being afraid of the bubonic plague. If I close my eyes, I can see the apple on Abbey Road’s label spinning on my parents’ turntable, and know that side two begins with "Here Comes The Sun" from personal memory. The only apple my kids will see if they listen to the Beatles now is the one on the front of the computer, and if they didn’t have me holding up my Sansabelt slacks and filling their heads with musical trivia whenever they can’t outrun me, the only way they’d know where side two started was if they visited Wikipedia on a lark. You know, to examine ancient history, for fun.

But, ever mindful of what the world was like when I knew the pops and skips in my records as well as I knew the lyrics, and recalling a time when I listened to them through giant headphones connected to the turntable by a 20 foot long coiled black cord, I’m grateful that the album spins in my memory while a digital copy that will never degrade currently plays in iTunes, streaming wirelessly via Airtunes to a set of small speakers behind me in my office. While I don’t need to look up the track listing on Wikipedia to know how the record was originally heard, having access to the most extensive collection of liner notes in history just a few clicks away makes my inner music geek squeal with excitement, then quickly look around and make sure nobody saw him break his carefully-crafted facade of cool disinterest.

For example:

I’ve been listening to Abbey Road as long as I can remember, and I didn’t know any of that until just a few hours ago. Damn, living in the future is so cool!

Just don’t tell my kids, because they won’t believe you.


Wil Wheaton lives in the future, is from the future, and has come back from the future to warn you about

I also find it sad that they won't have album sized album art available . It too just gets smaller & smaller .

im with you all the way on this....except for the sansabelts

I should send you one of my Atari 2600s, or my Intellivisions with the voice module. I'm pretty sure he'll wonder why it was the most amazing thing in our childhood.

Wow, you just made a connection.

There are few things I find as hilarious as showing little kids Atari 2600. The faces they make are so wonderful. It's as if they're trying to decide if you're being purposefully mean to them in some weird, sarcastic way.

Although I got one son of a friend of mine pretty hooked on "Adventure."

When my kids were little, they loved my 2600 more than the Sega Genesis, because the old 8-bit games were simpler and engaged their imaginations more than the 16-bit games that were state of the art in 1999.

My dad still has a reel to reel player. I also remember my first stereo that had both a record player and an 8-track built into it...I thought it was the coolest lol.

I still have my atari 2600, and wish I still had my pong machine.

I'm still like that with a lot of games. Some games just move to fast or are too busy or too complicated or whatnot for a casual gamer like me. My interest in Mario Kart is pretty much inversely proportional to the generation of its system.

I still remember the days of scouring the junk stores for an 8-track adapter for a cassette tape, cause my my first car, errr truck a 79 Silverado had an 8 track player. Or how cool it was when I got one of the first cassettes that were clear instead of the standard white or beige. I think it was Girls Girls Girls.

Good times.

I can sorta remember those good old days. My Atari 2600 is rotting in a box out in my storage shed I think. I tried to sell it at a pawn store a few years back, but they didn't want to give me very much for it, said they were too common. I should've come back and said something like, show me how many you have in stock, or some such like that. I remember being excited about this Superman game for the Atari, but I never could get the controls to work. The game would play just fine, but I couldn't control it. Too bad. I play modern ports of Pac-Man and Space Invaders these days and I'm saddened by my lack of coordination to play them. I've grown to used to the more modern video games with their ultra-amazing graphics and sound. Oh well, at least I have the memories... for now, who knows I may come down with Alzheimers some day and lose those too...

My wife recently got me a Pong Paddle Keychain. It comes with RF cables to hook up the TV and play Pong to my hearts content.

my wife!

I put an Atari 2600 emulator on my PSP. I showed it to a buddy at work and his reply was, "What's an Atari 2600."

I swear, part of my soul died.

My six year old is doing a school report on Lobsters.

After we visited various web sites to gather information, I made sure we pulled out the Encylopaedia Britinnica, both Micropaedea and Macropaedia, and showed him how to use these things his old dad used to use called "books".

The old ways are an important skill to pass on....

Records are great. I stopped buying cd's a few months ago and only purchase stuff on vinyl now. I love the sound of my portable school house style record player.

I also have a zune pass which lets me download almost anything I want onto my computer and portable device so it's not like I'm completely moving backwards.


Wil, your Dungeons and Dragons 4e podcast is up!

I'm only 20 and I feel the same way when talking with my cousin or even my friend's girlfriend. I was telling my cousin that Battletoads was my favorite NES game (no honestly it was and still is) and he asked me if an NES was like an N64 or a Wii. Childred nowadays will only experience the games we did on emulators that are crammed onto their mobile devices.

" I can see the apple on Abbey Road’s label spinning on my parents’ turntable"


Also gone is the Led Zep "Swan Song" label and the (classic!) Metal Blade "Axe" logo.

I should have grown up in the future, but turns out I grew up in the past. When the internet turned up, my family had a BBC Micro computer, I didn't have a games console until I was twelve years old and I spent most of my childhood... making my own fun. Yay for technology x

Grew up on vinyl. Not only do you memorize the lyrics, the music, down to the tiniest inflections, but your particular vinyl copy. Whenever I hear the ending of "Stairway", I add back in the two "pops" that my beat-to-hell IV copy came with after stealing it from my older brother (and the ensuing war). Ahh, yes, and fighting over records!

Amen. When I was working retail a kid came in looking for the new Eminem CD. I told him, 'Sorry, we sold out of the CD, but we still have it on vinyl," and he replied, "What's that?"

One thing I've noticed is that if I first bought a record on LP or cassette, I can instantly identify every song by name when I hear it, but if I bought it on CD I very often can't. I've decided that it's because since you have to flip an LP/cassette over, I would always count the songs and match them up to the list on the sleeve, so I'd be prepared to flip the record when it came to the end of the side. But with a CD you just press 'play' and forget about it.

I'm the same. I prefer games with uncomplicated visuals.

I still cart around a case full of CDs in my car. I don't really know why. Buying CDs is just an old habit that I haven't let die yet. I guess I find something romantic and tangible about flipping through used CDs at the record store that is hard to replicate with mp3s. I could easily go online and get a computer generated list of songs and bands I would enjoy, but what fun is that? I'd much rather find out for myself.

I'm jealous of your kids.
Where's my jetpack?

I had an Atari 2600, most fun gaming I ever had. I bought a computer game that had a few of the old ones on it, but it just wasnt the same.

mp3s, id3 tags, last.fm and all that are great, music geek nirvana but it's the tactile experience of vinyl that keeps it alive as a format. thats something you'll never be able to digitize.

the thrill of the hunt for that rare record, putting it on the platter, skipping through tunes, flipping it, scratching, mixing....

I really miss illuminated manuscripts...