why make a cd?
For years now, I've been working on and off on CD projects as soloist or collaborative, and sometimes they come to fruition, but many times they have come close and just not quite made it to the final stage. Throughout all of this, I keep wondering though, why do I want to make a CD? I mean, really, in 2005, why do it? Delivering music by CD almost seems retro when now it is quite common to just make it in real-time with friends online, or send it via an email attachment or a zipped archive or... I guess it's the part about money that keeps people making CD's. Labels still do exist, after all, and they have some role to play I guess. There are labels that I admire very much for their curatorial expertise, like Lucky Kitchen, ~scape, Asphodel, and Sonig. But that is from a consumer/collector perspective, but from an artist's perspective, what is the point really? Dissemination of my work is a part of the whole enterprise that I just prefer to not to think about.
Or maybe the answer is that everyone has a cd player, so if you want to get your music out there, it's the most efficient way. Maybe it is as simple as that.
Comments
Well, last night I was at a show by Kimya Dawson. At a certain point I found myself thinking "She's the best lyricist working in America now." Now, I don't think I could even have thought that thought if I didn't have a model in my head of a one-to-many media system like CDs. If Kimya just zipped and mailed mp3s to interested friends, could she be "the best lyricist working in America"? How would I compare her with all the rest? Would I even have heard of her?
Posted by: Momus | March 14, 2005 1:38 AM
So maybe the thought "X is the best at Y" is the product of this one-to-many model we have been using for so long. To me it seems more interesting to think X's lyrics have been re-contextualized by W via online collaboration with help from A, B, and C, publicly available for download from point G, at which point I can use that material for live improvisation with L and J at Café K.
Posted by: roddy | March 14, 2005 11:34 AM