This Is Utopia?

Like so many things, music blogs begin with the best of intentions.

Imagine a utopian community rooted in its love of music, with people sharing hard-to-find treasures and personal favorites at the same time they're exposed to new ones. Excitedly sharing thoughts and impressions with other like-minded individuals.

It's the spontaneous record store conversation given permission to continue beyond the threat of an expiring parking meter.

With this vision in mind, I joined several. I tried to be a nice guy. I shared things, fulfilled requests when I could and thanked those who fulfilled mine. Basic human behavior, right?

But never having been part of “the business” or counted a famous label executive, producer or musician as friends, I rarely dazzled anyone with my shares. Put another way, I wasn't uploading studio conversation between Tom Wilson and the Velvet Underground as they worked out the finer points of Venus in Furs.

Nevertheless, I contributed.

But in these sour and divisive times, it wasn't enough.

Disputes sprang up like weeds. Who got credit for posting something first? Who didn't think Terje Rypdal was Norway's answer to Charlie Christian? Who didn't get thanked enough? And what kind of godless heathen would post anything in a format other than FLAC?

The sniping went on and on and on.

Adding to the problem was that I used the same screen name in those blogs that I do here. And however I comported myself within those blogs, the political opinions expressed here made me an insufferable presence to many.

Why are we allowing radicalized socialists in here? was a persistent concern.

And then there were those who seemingly tracked every download versus every upload and screamed bloody murder if a perfect 1:1 ratio wasn't maintained. Or if posts were repeated. Or if you didn't adore the same bands and musicians they did.

This while one blog incessantly trumpeted itself as a place where “kindness wins”.

(To be sure, there were some incredibly generous individuals who regularly shared amazing music. And to those individuals I hope I made my appreciation clear.)

In my profile, I describe myself as a social critic. And under that aegis, I'll say that only inhabitants of the twenty-first century would complain that after uploading music, people downloaded it.

Seriously?

Yes, there are people in the world who take advantage of things. It is our nature. Pay much attention to the goings-on in Washington DC? Come on. Are you really going to tell me you never took two crackers topped with a delectable sharp cheddar despite being told that only one per customer was permitted?

Of course you have.

Downloading music proffered only with the expectation that said music be enjoyed seems like one of humanity's lesser crimes if you ask me. If this truly disturbs you, you might want to re-evaluate how and where you spend your time.

Firmly disabused of the notion that these communities were first and foremost only about the music and a haven from the ills of twenty-first century society, I drifted away. I drop in occasionally to download things when they appeal to me, but my desire to share has largely died.

Besides, with more music than I could ever hope to listen to and other, more pressing demands on my time, accumulating more seems pointless.

Like civilization itself, music blogs are a great and noble concept. But the reality is far less-appealing.

I realize now that music blogs can't help but reflect the societies from which they spring. And that just sucks.

Taking FLAC

I need to chill. Between the twin outrages of Donald Trump and the continued existence of the NRA, I'm going to blow a gasket. I detest the unpunished societal offenses committed by these entities.

They are horrors the combined imaginations of Edgar Allan Poe, William Peter Blatty and Stephen King never could have conceived.

I need something soothing to write about. Something lacking the bell-clanging urgency of gun control and looming fascism.

I know—I'll take sides in the FLAC – MP3 debate. Yeah. That's it.

Go ahead. Call me a glutton for punishment. No worries—I've said it many times myself.

I was late to the downloading party. I never grabbed a file off of Napster. I was a good boy. A respectful music fan. My introduction to digital downloading was e-Music, a service which offered (in retrospect) insufferably slow downloads to a set number of LPs each month.

So when I wanted the new Mogwai or Decemberists or Bettye LaVette release, I'd cue up the download before I went to bed and voila! It was ready to be ripped to a CD-R and playable in my car the next day.

(Most of the time, anyway.)

But then the Great Recession hit. And e-Music quickly became—even for a musiholic like myself—a non-essential expense.

Recession or not, my thirst for music continued. It demanded satiation. What was I to do?

In between my desperate attempts at locating even not-so-gainful employ, I discovered music sites and deciphered the intricacies of downloading and file conversion. I quickly discovered that FLAC-encoded files weren't transferable to CD-Rs and also weren't playable in my car or at home.

So they weren't very practical. And they took up a hell of a lot of room. And since I wasn't the sole user of the computer, installing a FLAC player and storing them there was not an option. So I ignored them and the raging arguments which advocated for them.

FLAC remained a speed bump I needed to cross before enjoying the ear candy the Internet was foisting upon my person.

I was entirely content with the studio recordings available for download at 320-bits. And the bootlegs whose bit-encryption was all over the map. 

I heard one twenty-eights that sounded like three-twenties and one ninety-twos that sounded absolutely pristine. I heard VBRs that sounded better than any of them. Given the enormous range of bootleg sources, it was difficult to assign one hard and fast standard to what sounded best.

Of course, sound is highly-subjective. What sounds good to me might sound like crap to you.

Muddying the waters still further is the fact that I am old. Really old. And that I've attended way too many concerts and spent way too much time in bars featuring live music and in clubs blasting dance music at unhealthy decibel levels.

So despite (or perhaps because of) my love of sound, I have not enjoyed it responsibly. I have overindulged. I have committed assault and battery upon my tympanic membranes.

But I should add that while I frequently experience difficulty discerning my mate's requests to take out the garbage or change the furnace filter, my ability to hear music remains remarkably intact.

This was confirmed when one day after an OS upgrade, I could play FLAC files on my computer.

And I was shocked. What I call 'the sound field' was deeper and wider than anything I had encountered with MP3s. Detail, space—all of it was heightened. OK. It was—and is—a richer listening experience. 

Uncle!

But naturally, there's a downside.

I still can't listen to FLAC files anywhere but on my computer. And when I want to recline on the couch with the newspaper or my current read and get lost in a favorite album, that is inconvenient.

Then there's the question of storage space. A cynic might say that after taking up three to four times the space of a conventional MP3 file, the least a FLAC-encoded file could do was sound better.

And they'd be right. After taking up that much space they ought to fold my laundry and do a little light housekeeping, too.

Yet even in my short experience, I realize they are disinclined to do so.

So I'll use FLAC where it makes the biggest difference—bootlegs. Where it enhances my favorite and most-treasured boots, it stays. With the added advantage that I can always convert it to an MP3 file when I want to listen elsewhere.

But studio releases? Well, not so much. Yeah, FLAC makes Wrecking Ball and Arkology and In a Silent Way sound even more amazing, but with a storage expense that really isn't cost-effective.

It's a twist on those old Miller Lite beer commercials. Yes, FLAC tastes great. Too bad it's not less-filling as well.