same as it ever was

i've been thinking a lot about the new medium.

oh, hi again btw! its been a while since i did a proper journal entry like this, a month and a half or so. i had a lot of fun with my writing challenge last month, and i think it broke a disinpired ice i was stuck in for a while and helped me find my writing ~groove~ whatever that means.

i'm a media professional, or rather, or prospective media professional. i think i'm still figuring out exactly what that means or will mean for me. at this moment, it means you can tune in to local college radio and hear my voice yammering on about some vapid garbage the offbeat section of AP wrote an article about.

i've come to learn that it isnt the long term goal for me though, for a number of reasons.

i really love the role radio plays culturally. at least, i love the role radio likes to believe it plays, and at one point in time, did. a parasocial connection to a personality who acts as a listening guide through songs that you have to hear in order to be part of the "conversation", whatever that means. to me, working in radio in my mind meant being a shepherd of music, media, and the now. it meant being the friend to fill the space in places that were uncomfortably open, like long drives or empty apartments. it meant being a tastemaker, and amplifying artists on a massive stage that is still discreet, because of the intentionality in tuning in.

i couldnt have been more wrong in my belief.

i don't want to go into too many of the dirty secrets of the radio industry as it stands, but i can give a sort of summary of my experience: the on-air radio industry is secretly a social media marketing industry that has zombiefied broadcasting with ai slop and constant content generation, and the transition to podcasting has built a coffin, in spite of the corporate push, radio professionals will not accept.

canadian media philosopher marshall mcluhan was famous for his statement that has been coming up in my life over and over: "the medium is the message". what that means? the communication method, not the language or the script, signifies the cultural content and identity. knrad of chords and discords made a really excellent video about this, and one particular part that resonates with me, and i think exemplifies mcluhan's thought, is jukebox culture.

the invention of the vinyl record meant that you had the chance to own music, for the first time in history (outside of italian aristocrats that paid composers in the classical area to write for royal court, but i digress). you opened up a 7x12 case with art, writings, song credits, and easter eggs from the artist that added to the experience of listening, both as reading material, and as a somatic experience while you listen. as a side of the record ends, you have to get up and flip it, a direct participation in the music experience. for the first time, you could say "this album is mine. there are many other like it, but this one is mine."

that is, until the jukebox. every diner was fitted with a jukebox, and for a nickel, you could flip through a catalogue of singles, and have a queue while dining on your pancakes and bottomless coffee, plotting murder or whatever people did in diners at the time. this turned vinyl listening from an active participation, where the warmth and detail was acutely attended to by the listener, to an undertone muzak experience that accompanied your... murder plotting (i think i just have this very riverdale image in my head of a diner that i can't get out...). the music industry pivoted from full active listening concept albums to singles, writing songs that would be bought and played in jukeboxes all around for young people to hear and share a double-strawed milkshake to. this pivotted an industry from an attentive and limited music experience, to a widespread and background listening one.

enter music streaming.

every song you could possibly ever care to hear, and more, is available at your search bar. music is the most passive it has ever been in history; you might play a chillhop playlist while working through your optimized ADHD hack pomodoro timer to get your social media marketing post finished before noon for your remote content creation job so that you can hop on a zoom call with your manager to discuss KPIs, and not realize that you've just let 4 or 5 AI generated songs play because you're so engrossed in obeying the algorithm and not letting scary thoughts, or really any original thoughts, or maybe even any at all, come to you. (none of these words existed 100 years ago...)

i'm tired of a post-attention world. american logic theorist herbert a. simon said "a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention". its a quote from a speech at john hopkins university in 1971, but the relevance of it is scorching today. post-attention is a direct result, to me, of non-ownership and post-intention; at least as it pertains to music. i don't know what the solution is materially, but i've been trying to make changes in my life that fit a better narrative. physical media, for one. my cd, vinyl and cassette collection grows, and i've found so much joy in the lossy sound of dust crackles and tape squeaks, and sitting at my cd player to figure out what about the disc it didn't like. i love learning about the nuance between the music formats that changes the listening experience. learning about the choices artists makes to amplify or cater to a particular format. the devil is always in the details, and as a musician and media professional myself, i want an audience experience that is participatory and attentive, because thats where the artist-audience connection is formed.

in the end, i am desperate for a music and media revolution. i couldn't tell you what it will look like, or what the path to getting there will be like, but i think i'm not the only one thats hungry for it. the age of new nostalgia among gen z means that we're going to start seeing a lot more of what our parents and grandparents did in their free time: dance halls, record clubs, actual disc jockeys. all this, while our parents fall into the trap of slop and suno, hoping to stay engaged in the perceived cultural consciousness. for my parents, who i know occasionally read my writing and are subscribers of the blog, i just want you to know that old is cool. thank you for letting me dig through your cd collection, i hope that my love for it will help you remember what you loved about it then too.

(actual picture of me in the studio)