I am indebted to John Frederick "JFH" Hammond who contributed material
for this conversation.
In 1958 the first vinyl 78 record I bought and owned was
Paul Anka's classic Diana ("Ohhh ... pleeez ... staaay ... by meee
... Di‑yanna") covered by David Serame. I
played it over and over and over on my wind-up
gramophone wearing out an entire tin of gramophone needles
in the process. It was called a "78" because it revolved at 78
revolutions per minute - which gave The Beatles the idea for naming
their ground‑breaking Revolver album ... but that's a story for
another occasion ...
The 78 was state of the art technology in its day. Then
pretty soon we started seeing more and more of the much smaller vinyl
45 - so-called because it revolved at 45 revolutions per
minute. In 1963 my first 45 was The Beatles' I Wanna Hold Your Hand
which also, in short order, was worn thin by repeated playing on my
next new, state of the art electric gramophone made by Decca known as a
Deccalian. Because the 45 played a cleaner sound at a slower
speed than a 78, it was known as an EP:Extended
Play. Pretty soon EPs were ubiquitous. The transition of the 78
from de rigueur music medium to archaic music relic had
begun.
But the dominant vinyl format was the 33. In 1965 my first 33
was Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass' Whipped Cream And Other Delights
which also fared well on my Deccalian. Much wider than the 45 and even
than the 78, a 33 could hold the equivalent of five 45s or 78s on
each side, because of which a 33 was called an album. And
since a 33 played an ever cleaner sound at an even slower speed (33
revolutions per minute) than a 45 or a 78, a 33 was known as an
LP:Long Playing album. Pretty soon LPs were
firmly entrenched, and 45s had started their
inexorable
march from the turntables into the Smithsonian.
Deccalians and other turntables required solid footing for their
delicately balanced playing mechanisms to work. They didn't do well
bouncing around in cars, so initially radio dominated how music was
enjoyed while driving. Then in 1964 we saw the emergence of the grandly
named 8 track stereo cartridge, a chunky four inch by six inch
by one inch slab of plastic encased three quarter inch tape, which in
turn gave way to the more manageable, much smaller tape format known
simply as a cassette, both of which were playable in cars,
completely changing the menu of what was available for listening
pleasure while driving. In 1969 my first cassette was Yes' breakout
self titled Yes album. Given its lush breakthrough sound, driving
would never be the same again.
In 1982 CDs ie Compact Disks followed,
providing digitally perfect sound reproduction, rendering tapes
redundant, and requiring an entirely new playback system. In 1997 my
first CD was Supertramp's remastered 1974 masterpiece Crime Of The
Century (I'd remained a diehard cassette holdout until
then).
It wasn't only the medium on which music was presented which
continuously evolved. It was the layering of the sound as
well. Mono sound gave way to stereophonic
sound which gave way to quadraphonic sound in 1972 and
sensurround sound in 1974. When I first heard quadraphonic
(or "quad" as we called it) versions of Pink Floyd's
legendary Dark Side Of The
Moon
and Electric Light Orchestra's self titled debut album The Electric
Light Orchestra during a sojourn in New Zealand in the early 1970s, it literally (to
coin the phrase of the day) blew my mind.
While the music media continuously improved to provide better quality
sound in more and more places, we were already beginning to see the
decline of an equally important aspect of the listening
experience: album cover art. Columbia Records' art director Alex
Steinweiss pioneered album cover art on the LPs' 12.375 inch square
sleeve. Each album cover provided an opportunity to depict
unforgettable images, representations of the music recorded on the
vinyl within. The large
canvas
provided by a 33 album cover was perfect for artistically accurate
representations of the music - like the attention grabbing depiction of
the quintessential 21st century schizoid manpainted
by Barry Godber on the cover of King Crimson's uncannily ground
breaking In The Court Of The Crimson King. The diminishing
canvas
offered by the much smaller label of the 8 track stereo cartridge and
the tiny by comparison label of a cassette was difficult
for me to witness - it was like watching the death knell of an
extraordinaryart form.
And even though CD jewel case inserts with their cover art are larger
than 8 track stereo cartridge labels and much larger than
cassette labels, the damage is done. Album cover art will never be the
same again.
An old fashioned music store in the farming community town where I live
sold old fashioned vinyl (all speeds) and old fashioned tapes (8 track
stereo cartridges and cassettes) in an old fashioned converted barber
shop. I loved going there to browse its dusty shelves and racks, never
knowing what treasures I'd turn up next. Then one day in 1995 the vinyl
and tape store closed its doors forever, unable to sustain a profitable
business in the face of the transition of music onto CDs. When I,
unknowingly, returned one lazy winter's day to meander through its
treasure troves looking for surprises and golden oldies
and found it was, once again, a barber shop, I stood there, my mouth
opening and shutting like a goldfish, uncomprehendingly. Something
valuable had obviously come to an end - for me, all too abruptly.
I could, however, still browse through racks upon racks of CDs at our
local CD outlet. Then one day in 2010 when its ability to make a profit
was also completely and finally decimated by growing sales of CDs via
the internet, it too closed its doors forever. Although CDs themselves
haven't disappeared (yet), in my home town there are now no more
brick
and mortar stores with either vinyl or tape or CD music to browse at
leisure. In my life it took eleven years from 1958 to 1969 for vinyl,
version 1.0, to start disappearing and give way to tape, version 2.0,
and then another twenty eight years from 1969 to 1997 for tape to start
disappearing and give way to CD, version 3.0, and then another thirteen
years from 1997 to 2010 for
brick
and mortar outlets of all three versions to disappear completely and
entirely from my home town. Three entire versions of
brick
and mortar history have come and gone in my life in the space of fifty
years.
As I contemplated this passing of these once rock solid
(pun intended) standards and the changing of what's available in sound
and music and how it's delivered, I first noticed while technology and
indeed while the world itself comes and changes and goes,
what remains as a constant are we human beings. We've been
around for quite a while now. Depending on whom you listen to, some say
we've been making footprints on
the planet
for around five
million
years or so. In a timeframe of five million years, the rapid transition
of three sound and music versions over a mere fifty years hardly merits
a mention.
Yes we've certainly changed, evolved, and advanced during this time
from neanderthal hominid to archaic Homo
Sapiens to modern Homo Sapiens. But for the most part, even
given the continuum of growth and development over this
extraordinary
period of time, this is still us: Human Being version 1.0, having
started circa 5,000,000 BC.
Then, just as I noticed I'd started to lapse into the
complacency of the idea that while everything around us is
changing, version 1.0 of us human beings is constant and has been
around for a long, long time time and will be around in the future for
a long, long time (although, truth be told, the jury's still out on
that one), I realized to my astonishment and delight it's not true at
all. I realized human being version 2.0 has indeed
recently appeared on
the planet.
And when I saw that, I was rocked to the core, perhaps rocked
even more than by all the versions of all the music in all the music
delivery formats and systems of all kinds combined than
have ever rocked me before.
What I realized is this:
In 1971 a new possibility made its presence known on
the planet
for the first time. In 1971 a new fish, figuratively speaking, walked
up on the land for the first time, bringing with it
elephants
and eagles like a possibility. In 1971 a new
context suddenly and discontiguously appeared
on
the planet
in which it became possible for a human being's life to be full and
whole and complete exactly the way it is and exactly the way it isn't.
In the space of this new possibility, the onus shifted for
human beings away from dealing with life, away from
reacting and responding to life, away from
managing life, and toward creating life,
toward determining the quality of life, toward
sourcing
life.
The era of incomplete reacter/hunter/gatherer has ended.
The era of whole and complete causer/inventor/generator
has begun.