There was something about actually going into a record shop to buy music, I even enjoyed the sneers of the pimply Herberts who dwelt behind the counters as I walked up with my latest purchase. These guys were like the proto-hipsters and had absolutely no respect for whatever you bought if they’d actually heard of the artist. I did once have a memorable triumph at such an infested counter, when I bought ‘Hypocrisy is the greatest luxury’ by the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. The young counter monkey had to look it up for me as it was available on import only. He carried it back to me like it was made of mercury. It clearly did not compute that a man so traditional looking as I was buying something new, imported and not done by Dire Straits or Phil Collins. He asked me ‘who is this for?’ and I said ‘my grandma’ mentally adding ‘you cheeky fucker’.
Downloading stuff is joyless compared to going to a record shop and buying vinyl. Buying a CD was a just bearable step down from that experience but CD’s [pullquote]we buy or steal our music like we buy or steal our pornography, sat at a desk, alone, and it will be so on March the 11th when David Bowie’s first new album in a decade will be released[/pullquote]never felt like a proper purchase and cost double in the UK despite being cheaper to produce, grrr @everyrecordcompanyever. In England they also charged us even more, about double the US prices for years and years but being British we just mumbled about it and said that ‘something should be done’ and we probably added an ‘harrumph’ at the end for emphasis and to show determination too. Buying an album in those days was a public act, it was a declaration of your admiration for an artist, your taste and to some extent your values too because artists were and are still associated with an outlook on life and an attitude. I remember the pride I felt as I sat at the front of a bus home (upstairs natch, smokers and other non-conformists only) and pulled out my newly purchased vinyl of Led Zep 4 to look at the sleeve notes and feeling the real or imagined stares of the ‘squares’ behind me, I swear I heard a tut or two. The stares were real a few months later as the album concerned was ‘Never Mind the Bollocks‘ by popular late ’70s boy band The Sex Pistols, I was even challenged by the man opposite me who was obviously some sort of prog rock/hippy dude who said ‘why are you listening to that rubbish?’ I just snorted, probably confirming every prejudice he’d already formed.
Now we buy or steal our music like we buy or steal our pornography, sat at a desk, alone, and it will be so on March the 11th when David Bowie’s first new album in a decade will be released. I will sit waiting for it to appear for sale and then within a few clicks, I will own it and it won’t feel like I bought it or anything really. There will be no witness to my taste, no-one to approve and confirm the purchase or arbitrarily judge me based on it and this simply isn’t as rewarding. But I will buy it because if the first single is anything to go by, it will be a stunning return to form for the Thin White Duke. Disregard any review you read about it or Bowie being ‘enigmatic’, it was probably written by someone who just doesn’t care and can’t be arsed thinking properly.
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