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  • WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 18 2009 6:00 AM

Wil Wheaton's Geek in Review: The Musical Future

Submitted by WilWheaton

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: music, ipod, records, mp3, wikipedia

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:

Toward the end of [the album], immediately prior to [the] "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make" line played over piano chords, are eighteen bars or measures of guitar solo: the first two bars are played by Paul McCartney, the second two by George Harrison, and the third two by John Lennon, then the sequence repeats. Each had a distinctive style which McCartney felt reflected their personalities: McCartney's playing included string bends similar to his lead guitar work on "Another Girl" from the Help! album; Harrison's was melodic with slides yet technically advanced and Lennon's was rhythmic, stinging and had the heaviest distortion. Immediately after Lennon's third solo, the piano chords of the final line "And in the end...." begins.



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


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Comments
legman

legman

Portland, OR
February 2006

FEB 18, 2009 11:34 PM

" 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.

miserabelle

miserabelle

United Kingdom
April 2007

FEB 19, 2009 01:55 AM

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 smile x

ZenTrixter

ZenTrixter

Portland, OR
October 2002

FEB 19, 2009 09:24 AM

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!

mingol

mingol

Singapore
July 2005

FEB 19, 2009 09:47 AM

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.

Cigarette said:

WilWheaton said:
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.


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

Katieesq

Katieesq

USA
June 2008

FEB 19, 2009 01:45 PM

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.

Gigondas

Gigondas

Charlotte, NC
January 2003

FEB 19, 2009 04:34 PM

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

WyldeSage

WyldeSage

I'm lost
June 2008

FEB 19, 2009 10:16 PM

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.

thehumansare

thehumansare

United Kingdom
February 2009

FEB 20, 2009 03:25 AM

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....

Cigarette

Cigarette

Cleveland, OH
April 2004

FEB 20, 2009 06:18 AM

I really miss illuminated manuscripts...

Cash

Cash

USA
OLD SKOOL

FEB 20, 2009 06:35 AM

mingol said:
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..



Holy crap! That's totally true. I never realized it before but it is so true. I have memorized the words to complete albums...but can't name it track for track.

SockPuppet

SockPuppet

I'm lost
July 2006

FEB 20, 2009 04:44 PM

mingol said:
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 noticed this as well. Maybe because I used to care; buying a record was a real expense for me, back when, so if it was any good it had to be incorporated into the SockPuppet canon.

SockPuppet

SockPuppet

I'm lost
July 2006

FEB 20, 2009 04:48 PM

Katieesq said:
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 buy CDs. I am not going to start buying mp3s, mostly because I don't believe they will still be playable in three years' time (note: three years is an arbitrary amount), and I have a lot of music; so it would cost me a lot if the mp3-holder died. Which they do, somewhat unpredictably.

sick

sick

Minneapolis, MN
June 2003

FEB 23, 2009 07:02 PM

SockPuppet said:

Katieesq said:
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 buy CDs. I am not going to start buying mp3s, mostly because I don't believe they will still be playable in three years' time (note: three years is an arbitrary amount), and I have a lot of music; so it would cost me a lot if the mp3-holder died. Which they do, somewhat unpredictably.



I too buy CDs. Frankly, a lot of my purchased mp3s sound like crap, and I prefer to have the CD so I can burn my own.
____

Now, what I really miss is the cassette. The death of the mix tape. Sure, people now make mix CDs, but it's not the same. With a CD it's easy to skip songs, repeat songs, and otherwise ruin the mix. Creating the perfect mix tape is an art, and I'll not have people fucking with it!

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