BURN, BABY!
Many of my friends have joined the new craze of burning music onto cd-rom's and, maybe I've hit that point of being "too old" to understand, but I just don't see the attraction. Being married, my social life is pretty much nonexistent, so I live vicariously through my friends, and I've recently learned that they actually have "burn parties" where people gather to socialize while burning each other’s music.
The whole bootleg movement confuses me. I see the short-term appeal of buying dvd's and videos, I've done to myself from time to time. When you love a movie, watching a crappy $7 black-market copy is better than paying $20 each time you want to see it. But some people actually keep that copy over buying the official version once released. Why? Pay the $17 - $20, get the movie, plus supplementals, and toss the black-market version (or keep it so when friends ask to borrow the movie, you give’em the bootleg).
Same goes for music, why would I want a burned cd over the official release? Sure, it's cheaper (if not flat out free), but there's more to a cd than just the music. There's the cover art, the interiors that could include the song lyrics; some bands are putting videos and bonus stuff on their cd, you don't get that on a burned copy. And what about the joy of having "it", the real thing, not a copy, not a dupe, but the actual album, cd, or tape?
I wonder if this is our only available form of rebellion now. Time has proven itself a revolution; things always come back around again disguised as something else. What happened once will happen again some time or other. Is this our 60's rebellion taking a new shape? Instead of attacking the powers with arguments of morality and humanism, we hit them where it really hurts, their profit margins.
But how quickly things occur the second time around. Took a while for the hippies of the 60's to become the baby boomers and corporate elite of the 80's. But it didn't take as long for Napstar to go legit did it?
But the thought of this endless cycle is more serious than a generation's rebellion against the "Powers". There are some pretty bad things that no one wants to see again. Like both World Wars for example, that there were two proves that there could be a third on the way. And now that AIDS has become passé, how long before the next epidemic hits us?
How long will it take for our species to learn how to live on this planet? We still operate in ignorance of our world and life in general. Whether it's the repetition of time or the sheer power of nature, we approach everything like children with no thought or concept of repercussion. Whatever you put in this world comes back; it's a cliché because it happens. But we never think it'll happen to us. I read reports from witnesses of the tsunami where people saw the monster wave coming at them, but did nothing to get away from it. Instead they stared at it, either in amazement or thinking it would subside before reaching the shore. With the passing of the millennium, prophecies unfulfilled, and the soothsayers proven hoaxes, our sense of immortality has been renewed. It's reflective in our entertainment, the things that were "hand's off” have become fair game. More stories about God and religion, using them as fictional characters are becoming more prevalent. I'm not complaining, I'm probably the biggest blasphemer there is, but where people used to be shocked, now there just curious.
No point here, just rambling until I find a good ending...
I remember being a kid, coming up during the Cold War, the biggest fear we had was a nuclear war. When the war ended, nothing was left to be afraid of but God and the apocalypse. Sure, some nut could get a nuke and go boom in a mall or something, but a nuclear explosion isn't as intimidating as a nuclear holocaust. Yeah, there was (or is) AIDS, but back then it was billed as the "gay disease", it took time before it was seen otherwise. And even that period of public awareness is shifting back to an "other people" thing. "That kind of thing happens to other people" seem to be the recent thought pattern when it comes to sex diseases. Again, a revolution, it began with ignorance, then prejudice, awareness, and back to ignorance.
No ending here, so I’ll just stop.
JPG.
The whole bootleg movement confuses me. I see the short-term appeal of buying dvd's and videos, I've done to myself from time to time. When you love a movie, watching a crappy $7 black-market copy is better than paying $20 each time you want to see it. But some people actually keep that copy over buying the official version once released. Why? Pay the $17 - $20, get the movie, plus supplementals, and toss the black-market version (or keep it so when friends ask to borrow the movie, you give’em the bootleg).
Same goes for music, why would I want a burned cd over the official release? Sure, it's cheaper (if not flat out free), but there's more to a cd than just the music. There's the cover art, the interiors that could include the song lyrics; some bands are putting videos and bonus stuff on their cd, you don't get that on a burned copy. And what about the joy of having "it", the real thing, not a copy, not a dupe, but the actual album, cd, or tape?
I wonder if this is our only available form of rebellion now. Time has proven itself a revolution; things always come back around again disguised as something else. What happened once will happen again some time or other. Is this our 60's rebellion taking a new shape? Instead of attacking the powers with arguments of morality and humanism, we hit them where it really hurts, their profit margins.
But how quickly things occur the second time around. Took a while for the hippies of the 60's to become the baby boomers and corporate elite of the 80's. But it didn't take as long for Napstar to go legit did it?
But the thought of this endless cycle is more serious than a generation's rebellion against the "Powers". There are some pretty bad things that no one wants to see again. Like both World Wars for example, that there were two proves that there could be a third on the way. And now that AIDS has become passé, how long before the next epidemic hits us?
How long will it take for our species to learn how to live on this planet? We still operate in ignorance of our world and life in general. Whether it's the repetition of time or the sheer power of nature, we approach everything like children with no thought or concept of repercussion. Whatever you put in this world comes back; it's a cliché because it happens. But we never think it'll happen to us. I read reports from witnesses of the tsunami where people saw the monster wave coming at them, but did nothing to get away from it. Instead they stared at it, either in amazement or thinking it would subside before reaching the shore. With the passing of the millennium, prophecies unfulfilled, and the soothsayers proven hoaxes, our sense of immortality has been renewed. It's reflective in our entertainment, the things that were "hand's off” have become fair game. More stories about God and religion, using them as fictional characters are becoming more prevalent. I'm not complaining, I'm probably the biggest blasphemer there is, but where people used to be shocked, now there just curious.
No point here, just rambling until I find a good ending...
I remember being a kid, coming up during the Cold War, the biggest fear we had was a nuclear war. When the war ended, nothing was left to be afraid of but God and the apocalypse. Sure, some nut could get a nuke and go boom in a mall or something, but a nuclear explosion isn't as intimidating as a nuclear holocaust. Yeah, there was (or is) AIDS, but back then it was billed as the "gay disease", it took time before it was seen otherwise. And even that period of public awareness is shifting back to an "other people" thing. "That kind of thing happens to other people" seem to be the recent thought pattern when it comes to sex diseases. Again, a revolution, it began with ignorance, then prejudice, awareness, and back to ignorance.
No ending here, so I’ll just stop.
JPG.
posted by QABBAL at 11:26 AM
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