It starts with a breath, then a firm, reassuring click of the play button. Then, as the mechanism engages with the magnetic tape in the cassette, a startling yet pleasantly satisfying thump, followed by a few moments of heightened anticipation, soundtracked by the sparkling, comforting warmth of analogue hiss.
Soon, the string section announces the beginning of the song, then the drums, bass and guitars crash in. What follows can only be described as alchemy, and I am fully here for it.
But in amongst the exhilarating rush of perfect pop music, let’s not forget that thump. It is, without doubt, a music all of its own. You could, if you were feeling deep, contemplative, and perhaps even a little romantic, think of it as a call to prayer. At the very least, it was an unobtrusive suggestion - lets call it a humble reminder - to mirror the internal workings of the cassette deck; to settle in, bring your attention to that which matters, and prepare to engage.
It’s a profound experience, and one which I have missed out on for a number of years due to its absence from any online streaming service. Having sold or given away my collection of tapes, records and CDs over a decade ago when I began a three-year ashram residence, I have, in the pursuit of simplicity, followed the modern trend of accessing the vast majority of my cultural experiences through a handheld digital device.
Suffice to say, it is a pursuit which came with its own complexities; complexities which have resulted in the cancellation of my increasingly expensive Spotify subscription, and a commitment to spend my newfound wealth indulging a passion for tapes which began back in 2012, when the band I was in released our debut album on cassette as a result of my minor obsession with the format.
Another nail in the coffin of my subscription was the widespread sharing of shameful statistics regarding Spotify’s payment of royalties, particularly to those “smaller fish” in the vast pond of online streaming.
The details are well documented online, so there’s no need to mention them here (although if you’re not aware of them and you use their service then I strongly recommend some quick research), but what struck me most was not the paltry amount which Spotify chooses to pay, but the way in which Spotify chooses to pay it. In short, it meant that the money which I payed Spotify as a monthly subscription fee would rarely find its way into the hands of the artists whose work was enriching my life.
It was time to re-evaluate my relationship with the act of purchasing music.
What profits a man if he gains the entire history of recorded music, but fails to truly hear it?
The purchase is an intriguing thing. On the surface, as human society crashes headfirst in to the endgame of rampant consumer capitalism, it is often, and quite understandably, viewed as a somewhat grubby act. But we don’t have to stretch our minds too far to see it as something else entirely - an act of gratitude, a mark of respect, an encouraging display of faith, and an instiller of value. For the purchaser, the attention which we give something has an intimate relationship to the price we pay for it.
I started to think back to my teens and what a CD actually meant to me - how its value was heightened by its scarcity, brought on by the fiscal limitations of youth. It was this scarcity which defined my daily routine; innumerable hours spent listening to one single album on repeat, my every move built around the spinning of a disc. I would press play the moment I returned home from school and keep listening until I fell asleep. The album would play on repeat all through the night and again, still there, playing when I woke up, the same album now becoming the soundtrack to my morning routine, until I was forced out of the door and back to school.
In my own creative endeavours, I see what a blessing it is to have experienced music in this way: to this day I can recall details of where the handclaps were placed on an obscure Verve b-side, or where the bass sat in the mix on that Peter Tosh album. It was arguably the most valuable education that I received as a teenager; a deep study which developed attention to detail and knowledge of a craft - the kind of apprenticeship which needs to be passed down from master to disciple through each generation in every walk of life.
It was an education which now aids me in making music which is of great value to myself and others.
Of course, music has always been made for and influenced by its marketplace. That its marketplace has now eliminated any sense of scarcity is without doubt one of the most damaging developments in the history of popular music. Streaming engenders such a lack of commitment in the majority of listeners that it is often deemed unnecessary to weave intricate and evocative musical flourishes or groundbreaking sonic techniques into a piece of popular music, simply because they won’t be heard.
This, of course, creates the kind of throwaway music which doesn’t inspire repeated listens, and so begins a disintegrating feedback loop of superficiality which slowly, insidiously, sacrifices profundity at the altar of convenience.
“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte
Having fasted all week and trousered my lunch money, I would sprint from the school gates to Ramsgate town centre to agonise over the racks in Our Price and Howling Sounds (a fantastic second hand record shop run by a man who was actually called Dave Howling) and continue my education. It was here that I learned about the art and value of making tough decisions; would I rather spend the next week living with Green Day or Finlay Quaye? (I chose Finlay). These decisions prepared me to make tough choices as an adult; I was learning to curate not only the soundtrack to my life, but my life itself.
If the purchase is the toenail-thickening, character-building hard decision, then the record collection is surely its corollary, the consequence; circumstances of our own making which we have to live with, publicly or in private, and which continue to shape us long after the original decision has been made. They are fragments of ourselves which, one day, our children and grandchildren will be able to hold in their hands, contemplate, and which may act as a small gateway into the heart of their late predecessor. If we get lucky, they might be able to sell one of them and buy a house, a car, or a guitar, but the collection is so much more than that; it’s a cultural wealth that contributes to an ongoing sense of identity and security for our descendants, a secure platform from which they can dive headfirst into their own journey of tough decisions. Leaving a link to a playlist in your last will and testament is not the same thing.
'The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain.'
Gabor Maté
You could say that the installation of a skip button onto a vast library of recorded sound has as much to tell us as that mighty thump. Who are we, and where are we going? To me, the thump signals a commitment to a journey over which I have little or no control, and warns me that I am bout to enter a period of self-scrutiny as I take the risk of coming up against things - unavoidable things - which I may not like. How I choose to deal with those things will define my experience for the next twenty minutes.
The skip button, meanwhile, tells me that I am a consumer who finds it uneasy to sit with difficult moments of their own making; to feel them, to be curious about them, to hear what they say about me, and to patiently work through whatever deep cut I am healing before the sun of a bona fide chart hit radiates over the horizon.
The skip button tells me that, if I’m not careful, I will be part of a generation of creators who feel compelled to cram all of their melody, harmony and poetry into the first thirty seconds of a recording so that no-one presses it too early, denying them entrance to a raffle where the top prize is $0.003.
The passive consumption promoted by streaming services means little more than giving power of attorney to a profit-driven corporation. By handing those priceless, hard choices over to a computer program controlled by a stranger who doesn’t have my best interests at heart, I am living with the consequences of their choices, not mine. I am a ship at sea with neither rudder nor anchor.
Theories abound regarding the cause and solution of these problems within the music industry. Most, if not all of them are structural or infrastructural and are riddled with hollow doublespeak, and all of them, naturally, have their pros and cons. What they all have in common is that every one of them deals with the symptoms, and not the root cause, of the problem.
When asked recently what I thought the cause of the problem was, I couldn’t help but think of my dad. “Deep pockets and short arms”, he would have said. I would agree, but add this: the sole cause of the problem is the crisis of identity which has shortened those arms.
You see, the ability to reflect upon one’s existential position, to question it, and to make art about it, is a uniquely human privilege, and a society - both consumers and creators - which places no value on that is, quite simply, stripping itself of its humanity.
Our inverted value systems are a reflection of the way we see ourselves and others, and the streaming conundrum is a perfect microcosm of a society that has taken a deeply wrong turn. We all know that great art elevates, inspires and pushes us to develop and grow, but when this expansion of consciousness ceases to be our prime objective, both individually and collectively, the cheapening of art is an inevitable by-product. What is needed, then, is not a change of policy or distribution channels, or a new CEO, or even a new platform, but a change in our very sense of self: to strive to be something more than mere consumers - active or passive - of a product which we want to enjoy, and to become intrepid voyagers on the ocean of self realisation.
Thump. Wake up. It’s time to engage.
I don’t want to come across as a drama queen, and I know that Spotify won’t miss the few quid that I’m no longer adding to their coffers. But I also know that it wasn’t Spotify - the faceless corporation - who created this situation. It’s the product of decisions made by the individual people who run Spotify et al, and by all the people, myself included, who chose to go along with them. At the moment, the best I can do, for myself and everyone else, is to choose to opt out and pursue a different path. Not an easy decision, but the right one.
(P.S. If you like any of the music shared in this newsletter then, needless to say, I implore you to spend whatever you can to buy yourself a copy. You won’t regret it.)